THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
March 10, 2024 at 19:05 JST
A graduating student walks under an arch formed by parents after the graduation ceremony at Toyo Junior High School in Wajima on March 9. (Takuya Tanabe)
WAJIMA, Ishikawa Prefecture--Yui Togishi was both elated and sad during a junior high school graduation ceremony in this Noto Peninsula city still reeling from a powerful earthquake on New Year’s Day.
She was among the five students graduating from Toyo Junior High School who will now move on to different high schools. The group of students have been friends since their nursery school days.
“I feel lonely when I think that we will not be able to spend normal days that I had taken for granted,” Togishi said in tears in a speech on behalf of the graduating students on March 9.
The 15-year-old also said, “We will certainly recover from this earthquake.”
Chika Kawahara, one of her five schoolmates, will move to Nara Prefecture, where her mother’s parents live, because her home was badly damaged in the magnitude-7.6 temblor. The house stands tilted on one side.
“I am glad that the five of us were able to graduate together,” Kawahara said.
Kosei Taura, another schoolmate, will go on to a high school in Kanazawa, the prefectural capital.
His mother will be with him, while his father, a carpenter, will remain in Wajima to help with post-quake recovery work.
“Without the quake, I would have chosen to attend a high school in Wajima with my friends,” Taura said. “I feel lonely and uneasy. But we will certainly be able to meet again.”
Graduation ceremonies were held at the two other junior high schools in Wajima on March 9.
At a ceremony held at a fire station, 125 students graduated from Wajima Junior High School.
Of them, 73 had only just returned from the city of Hakusan in southern Ishikawa Prefecture the previous day.
They evacuated to Hakusan together with teachers around two months ago following the earthquake.
Tokutaro Kitamura will stay in Wajima while many of his friends will go on to high schools elsewhere.
“I am glad that I was able to graduate with everyone in the city where I was born and raised,” Kitamura said.
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