Photo/Illutration Ruins of a town government office building, left, are seen in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 16, 2011. Of the 30 or so people who were on the rooftop of the building when the tsunami swamped the area after the Great East Japan Earthquake, only about 10, including the mayor, survived by clinging to an antenna and other objects. (Hironobu Nozawa)

When Hironobu Nozawa happened upon a weeping man kneeling over a body on the floor at a nursing home 10 years ago, he hesitated for a moment, uncertain about intruding.

Still, the photographer turned his camera to the man who had discovered the body of his wife in Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, two days after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.

Nozawa’s compelling image evokes the wail of the man that must have resounded in the room covered in soft mud.

The photograph is featured in “Saigai Retto Nihon” (Japan, a disaster archipelago), a recently published collection of graphic reminders of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and other disasters that befell Japan in subsequent years.

The images were captured through the lenses of the nation’s 49 leading professional photographers, including Bunyo Ishikawa, Yoshino Oishi and Takeyoshi Tanuma.

Nozawa, 52, had scored a number of scoops with his photographs, long working under an exclusive contract for a photo weekly.

He left Tokyo and hit the road as soon as the magnitude 9.0-earthquake struck the northeastern Tohoku region, taking more than a day to reach the town of Minami-Sanriku, which news reports said had been totally destroyed.

Nozawa was rendered speechless by the disastrous sight that stretched out before his eyes, although he had previously made the rounds of conflict areas around the world.

The photograph he took at the nursing home is titled “The sole surviving record of the couple.”

The man and his family had lost everything to the tsunami, including their home and mementos.

Nozawa was later told by the man, “This photo is the only available record of my wife and myself as a couple.”

SMILES IN FLOOD-HIT AREA

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Junior high school students make the rounds of streets in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, in July 2020 to distribute drinks, bought with their pocket money, to people engaged in post-flood restoration work. (Yoshiaki Murayama)

Yoshiaki Murayama, 49, a freelance photographer, has been shooting images of children playing in rivers across Japan.

In summer 2020, he traveled around communities in Kumamoto Prefecture that had been pounded by torrential rains and spent nights in his car.

One day, he spotted a trio of smiling children walking down a street, which was lined with mud-covered household goods, in Hitoyoshi in the prefecture.

The Kumagawa river had overflowed and inundated the city, including the downtown area.

The children introduced themselves as local junior high school students. They said they had bought canned drinks out of their pocket money, and they were distributing the drinks to people cleaning up after the flooding.

“I offered to give them a 5,000-yen ($46) bill to add to their funds, but they flatly declined, saying they could not take my money because they were doing that out of their desire,” Murayama said. “The way they behaved was both refreshing and touching.”

In addition to the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the collection of photos contains records of disasters such as the heavy rains in the Kanto and Tohoku regions in 2015, which ruptured the embankment of the Kinugawa river; the heavy rains in western Japan in 2018; the earthquake in eastern Iburi, Hokkaido, also in 2018; and Typhoon No. 15 that tore through the Boso Peninsula in 2019.

“The works of the 49 photographers show that Japan is in the midst of multiple disasters,” said Kenichi Shindo, 77, formerly of Kyodo News, who helped compile the book. “They also highlight the unusual state the Earth is in.”

The 127-page book, released by Fusosha Publishing Inc., is priced at 1,800 yen, excluding tax.

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A boy searches for mementos on the former site of his home, swept away by the tsunami, in Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, in May 2011. (Kenichi Shindo)

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