Photo/Illutration Diver Yuichi Hirata does push-ups to keep fit at the Japan Coast Guard Academy in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Feb. 8. (Provided by Japan Coast Guard Academy)

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a five-part series in which Japanese from all walks of life recall their experiences and backgrounds in the context of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011. Each person recounts what they touched that day or on those that followed to offer a perspective on touching the lives of others.

***

Daily push-ups at the Japan Coast Guard Academy in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, help Yuichi Hirata, 34, stay in peak physical condition.

Hirata needs to be in top form if he is to reach his goal of becoming the leader of a diving team responsible for rescue operations at sea, an activity that can involve diving to search for missing people.

He has some experience of the latter due to the towering tsunami that swept people out to sea following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, that devastated Pacific coastal communities in northeastern Japan.

At the time, Hirata was a member of a regional coast guard unit headquartered in the Tohoku region to cover the rugged coastline there.

Eleven days after the disaster, Hirata discovered a submerged body for the first time.

He was diving in the Onagawa port area in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

The seabed was strewn with debris from the disaster, including wreckage of a three-story house.

The body was face-down on the seafloor at a depth of about 8 meters.

The water temperature was below 10 degrees. Hirata touched the person’s hand, but felt no warmth.

“His hand was a little bit rigid,” he recalled.

It was clearly the body of an elderly man, but the facial features showed no signs of an agonizing death.

“He just appeared to be sleeping,” Hirata said.

At the time, Hirata was just a rookie diver with six months’ experience under his belt. He felt pressure all the time because of his relative lack of experience.

“I just wanted to get him out of the sea,” he said.

That experience taught Hirata a simple fact that “if you search carefully under the water, you surely find missing persons.”

More than 2,500 people were listing as missing after the disaster. It emerged that many were swept out to sea.

“Only divers among Japan Coast Guard personnel have their hands to be able to touch things or people under the water,” he said.

Related News