By SHOGO KOSHIDA/ Staff Photographer
March 11, 2021 at 07:00 JST
Feb. 21, 2021: Kazuto Oya looks around the fishing port in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, where he loved to catch fish and scoop up wakame seaweed. His grandmother’s body was found there. (Shogo Koshida)
Editor’s note: This is the second of a four-part series retracing the lives of four families over the decade following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, mainly through photos that depict a range of human emotions as bereaved family members and other survivors tried to comfort each other and rebuild their lives.
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A desolate scene awaited Kazuto Oya when he attended a traditional Buddhist memorial service for his grandmother held on the 49th day of her death.
Hardly a gravestone was standing upright at the cemetery in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. They had been knocked over by the tsunami that claimed his grandmother's life.
Oya, 42, couldn't contain his grief and started howling, while looking up at the sky.
The heart-wrenching scene was witnessed by an Asahi Shimbun photographer covering the aftermath of the 3/11 disaster.
The magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on a Friday, Oya's day off as a licensed caregiver. He decided to use the time to visit nearby Ishinomaki to buy a birthday present for his father, Michio Oikawa. The quake hit while he was out shopping.
Bypassing blocked roads, Oya managed to return to his hometown after sunset. The devastation he encountered rendered him speechless. The familiar sight of the home where his parents and grandmother lived was gone. Only an orange-colored tractor remained.
The house had stood on a slightly lower elevation than that of the apartment where he lived in with his wife.
The body of his grandmother was later found at a fishing port near her former home. The remains of Oya's mother were never found.
Oya later learned that in the minutes after the quake his father, a fisherman, had urged his wife and the grandmother to remain at home when he left to move his fishing boat to higher ground in case tsunami hit. Michio witnessed his home being engulfed in waves after fleeing to higher ground from the fishing port.
“I should never have asked them to stay home,” Michio confided in an acquaintance. Oya was surprised to learn his father spoke that way because he was always such a tough character who appeared able to overcome any misfortune and never spoke about such things at home.
Oya's father died in winter 2018 at the age of 68 after collapsing from illness in the bathroom. Oya has since taken over the position of community organizer that his father held to look after the welfare of other residents, some of whom have died in the past decade.
Oya throws himself into the work, which he does in his spare time, and finds fulfilling. He decided to stay on in Minami-Sanriku.
“It was a natural disaster,” said Oya while gazing at the calm sea. “The spirits of those now in paradise will surely be cheered if survivors do not blame themselves and spend their days caring for one another with smiles on their faces.”
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