For the last couple of days we have been travelling north along the east coast of Honshu, through Tsunami affected towns. The map shows them as brown colour, and road signs indicate "past Tsunami unundation section". The worst visible damage was in the Fukushima uninhibited zone, where presumably there has been less urgency to clean up the damage. And it was certainly visible.
Remember this building in Sendai? This is where hundreds of people climbed to escape and some of the videos we saw were taken from. It was a school, and the teachers got the kids to the roof. It is badly damaged to the top of the third floor and something obviously floating impacted the fourth floor breaking the brick wall. It must have been terrifying for those on the roof.
Many or even most towns are building up the vacant allotments, raising the level. This is taking an immense amount of soil, gravel and resources.
There are shrines for the dead...this is presumably the deity who was supposed to protect them from the sea...... FAIL,
The names of the lost -Sendai.
And small personal shrine on a housing slab with no house...
By any measure this is the most devastating thing I have seen -the combination of nuclear melt down and Tsunami. 20,000 lives lost and many more completely disrupted.
In most areas the mess has been cleaned up, and some new buildings have been completed on raised slabs. People are very resilient and life appears to be returning to normal!
And on a lighter note, this coastline is spectacular.
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