After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, a city is being rebuilt – now people need to survive

With the withdrawal of state-led financial support, Rikuzentakata is struggling to prevent the decline in other rural parts of Japan. Many survivors have settled elsewhere and large tracts of land in the city center are unused.

Momiko Kinno pushed her elderly mother into a cart to escape the wave that took their home and thousands of other people from Rikuzentakata on March 11, 2011. After eight years in a temporary shelter, Mrs. Kinno, now in 75 years old, moved to a new two-storey house in the central area of ​​the city, surrounded by empty lots and “sale” signs. Her son and daughter moved to other cities to work.

“I don’t think a lot of people will come back here,” she said.

Recovery work from the 2011 disasters on Japan’s northeast coast, including the melting of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, was one of the world’s most expensive revitalization projects. Public spending so far is nearly $ 300 billion. The U.S. government has spent about $ 110 billion on recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Bureau.

The commercial and residential heart of Rikuzentakata, located on a low-lying plain, has been almost completely swept away, and the city alone accounted for about a tenth of the deaths caused by Japan’s worst post-war natural disaster. In 2014, a project began using the soil and rock on a mountain top to raise the central area by more than 20 feet. The final sections are to be completed this year as part of the $ 1.4 billion land redevelopment work.

In 2017, a 40-meter-high concrete wall was completed, spanning more than a mile along the bay near the city, part of the 270-mile new seawall built in the region from disaster.

The reconstruction created a “disaster bubble,” said Masayuki Kimura, whose family-run home and bakery were both destroyed by the tsunami. Mr Kimura resumed his business from an old train car and quickly doubled his pre-tsunami sales as an influx of disaster-stricken workers, volunteers and tourists broke their cakes in the baumkuchen layer in German style and other delicacies.

The prefecture or state government has temporarily taken over $ 300,000 in debt and managed to borrow more, moving its business to twice as many offices, most recently in 2015 in a fake European brick building, on a hill at the edge. the city.

With recovery work nearing completion and short-term visitors reduced, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Kimura’s sales fell 20% from their peak. The 63-year-old still has $ 900,000 in bank debt. He is working on developing cakes for vegans and people with allergies as a way to increase online sales.

“I realized that in order to survive, I have to compete with stores in other cities,” he said.

The government has provided subsidies and debt relief to businesses in the disaster region as part of its 10-year recovery plan. It is said that a new five-year package of $ 15 billion will be aimed primarily at supporting individuals, including mental health care.

Rikuzentakata Mayor Futoshi Toba wants more assistance to revive the local economy now that reconstruction is complete. Less than half of the city’s redeveloped land is in use.

“Finally, we have created the conditions to try to attract businesses back here, just as government support programs end,” he said.

Mr Toba, who started work two months before the disaster and lost his wife in the tsunami, said the decision to build large areas of the city was meant to encourage people to stay, but the extended project helped at the loss of the population.

“People can resist living in temporary accommodation for a year or two, but when they are seven or eight years old, they will consider options elsewhere,” he said.

Thousands were forced to live temporarily or move away from Rikuzentakata after the disaster. The city’s population was 18,601 at the end of February, down almost 25% from a decade earlier.

In an unusual turn, the birth rate in Rikuzentakata rose briefly to become one of the largest in Japan after the disaster, a phenomenon sometimes seen after major earthquakes. It is now in line with the national average, well below the level needed to keep the population stable.

At the current rate of decline, the population of Rikuzentakata will halve by 2060. It is estimated that over 50% of residents will be over 65 by 2040.

Oyster farmer Sakae Yoshida had 30 employees, but now has eight, as most have retired. The bay near Rikuzentakata is known for its full, fist-sized oysters provided to luxury Tokyo hotels. The tsunami has created better growing conditions for oysters by dredging the seabed, but it is difficult to take full advantage of the opportunity, Mr Yoshida said.

“Everyone has aged and there is no one to take over the job,” said the 73-year-old, as he and his wife finished sorting the day’s harvest at a small plant near the tsunami wall.

A few young people have returned. Twenty-four-year-old Rinnosuke Yoshida moved to Rikuzentakata last summer to work on his grandparents’ vegetable farm after attending college near Tokyo and working in advertising sales for a short time. Most of his high school friends moved to other cities.

Rinnosuke Yoshida, who is not related to the oyster farmer, said he prefers clean country air and living by the sea. He also said he was motivated by the wishes of his father, Toshiyuki, who wanted to work on the family farm after retirement, but was killed in the tsunami.

His grandfather, who is 87 years old, and his grandmother, who is 82 years old, sometimes tell him what he looks and speaks like Toshiyuki, who was their son. Toshiyuki was a baseball coach at Rinnosuke High School. Both Rinnosuke and his older brother, who lives in the prefectural capital, were keen baseball players. Rinnosuke recently started playing again with a local club team.

On March 11, he expects to take his mother and grandparents to the family grave to pay tribute to his father. “I’m not torn by his death, but of course sometimes I want to see him,” he said.

He hopes to marry his high school girlfriend, who is preparing to become a nurse, this year. She will find out in March if she passed the exams to become qualified. I plan to stay in Rikuzentakata and start a family.

Write to Alastair Gale at [email protected] and Miho Inada at [email protected]