By Jon Herskovitz
KIRIKIRI, Japan | Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:50am EDT
KIRIKIRI, Japan (Reuters) - The signs posted at intervals along the coastal road in northeast Japan read "End of Estimated Tsunami Inundation Zone." The obliterated landscape beyond shows the estimations were badly out.
Route 45 was once one of Japan's more scenic drives, hugging the coast for hundreds of kilometers, but the earthquake on March 11 unleashed a wall of water that tore through the region, leaving a path of destruction behind it.
Police, fire fighters and the inevitable disaster sightseers now travel the road from the northern city of Miyako, where an elaborate sea wall system proved helpless against waves as high as four-storey buildings, south to the area around a crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture.
The road scampers up mountains and into cities nestled in the hills that had their centers ripped out by the tsunami, leaving surreal scenes of destruction.
Ships are stacked on cars and buildings; cars have ended up in hotel lobbies; fishing gear is wrapped around a power pole that crashed through the window of a convenience store, which was also hit by a floating house.
Sightseers stop in the parking lot of the heavily damaged Namizaka Tourist Hotel along the coast, where someone's home came to rest a few metres from the entrance.
"These aren't the towns that were once here. It's terrible. It's so tough to see," said Misato Chiba in the car park overlooking the sea. "Route 45 is all ripped up now. The towns are a mess and it's just dangerous."
MASS GRAVES
The road passes through towns few even in Japan had heard of until the tsunami. It has mostly reopened now, except for stretches where the death and destruction were most concentrated, in cities such as Otsuchi, still covered by vast plains of mud-covered debris in which hundreds of people died.
Car navigation systems can easily falter here, with drivers directed on to bits of road that are obstructed by the wreckage or simply don't exist any more.
Troops with construction equipment have been preparing mass graves for victims to be laid to rest at the ravaged Jorakuji Temple, near where Route 45 is closed in Otsuchi. The hastily built cemetery at the Buddhist temple can be found just above the "Tsunami Evacuation Point" sign.
The dynamics of destruction are all about elevation here.
Almost everything 15 metres above sea level escaped and everything below was hit by a fast-moving wall of water that uprooted houses and slammed trucks together in a darkening soup, dumping them haphazardly when the giant wave receded.
In the town of Kirikiri, built up into hills, more homes survived. In the city of Rikuzentakata, where the land is flat along the coast, the tsunami erased vast areas where rescue workers are still finding bodies.
Tens of thousands of homeless people have been moved to schools along the road, where they squeeze into gymnasiums and classrooms, using portable toilets and yearning for a bit of privacy.
By Jon Herskovitz
KIRIKIRI, Japan | Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:50am EDT
KIRIKIRI, Japan (Reuters) - The signs posted at intervals along the coastal road in northeast Japan read "End of Estimated Tsunami Inundation Zone." The obliterated landscape beyond shows the estimations were badly out.
Route 45 was once one of Japan's more scenic drives, hugging the coast for hundreds of kilometers, but the earthquake on March 11 unleashed a wall of water that tore through the region, leaving a path of destruction behind it.
Police, fire fighters and the inevitable disaster sightseers now travel the road from the northern city of Miyako, where an elaborate sea wall system proved helpless against waves as high as four-storey buildings, south to the area around a crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture.
The road scampers up mountains and into cities nestled in the hills that had their centers ripped out by the tsunami, leaving surreal scenes of destruction.
Ships are stacked on cars and buildings; cars have ended up in hotel lobbies; fishing gear is wrapped around a power pole that crashed through the window of a convenience store, which was also hit by a floating house.
Sightseers stop in the parking lot of the heavily damaged Namizaka Tourist Hotel along the coast, where someone's home came to rest a few metres from the entrance.
"These aren't the towns that were once here. It's terrible. It's so tough to see," said Misato Chiba in the car park overlooking the sea. "Route 45 is all ripped up now. The towns are a mess and it's just dangerous."
MASS GRAVES
The road passes through towns few even in Japan had heard of until the tsunami. It has mostly reopened now, except for stretches where the death and destruction were most concentrated, in cities such as Otsuchi, still covered by vast plains of mud-covered debris in which hundreds of people died.
Car navigation systems can easily falter here, with drivers directed on to bits of road that are obstructed by the wreckage or simply don't exist any more.
Troops with construction equipment have been preparing mass graves for victims to be laid to rest at the ravaged Jorakuji Temple, near where Route 45 is closed in Otsuchi. The hastily built cemetery at the Buddhist temple can be found just above the "Tsunami Evacuation Point" sign.
The dynamics of destruction are all about elevation here.
Almost everything 15 metres above sea level escaped and everything below was hit by a fast-moving wall of water that uprooted houses and slammed trucks together in a darkening soup, dumping them haphazardly when the giant wave receded.
In the town of Kirikiri, built up into hills, more homes survived. In the city of Rikuzentakata, where the land is flat along the coast, the tsunami erased vast areas where rescue workers are still finding bodies.
Tens of thousands of homeless people have been moved to schools along the road, where they squeeze into gymnasiums and classrooms, using portable toilets and yearning for a bit of privacy.
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