The Yomiuri Shimbun
Some people's miraculous return to life from the brink of death in the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster was a result of their desperate desire to emerge alive, combined with layers of lucky coincidence.
One person survived by holding onto wooden pillars as if surfing on the surging tide, while another managed to breathe in the narrow space between a building ceiling and rising floodwaters. All their narratives attest to the tsunami's real horror.
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Car floats to 2nd-floor height
Yuko Ono, 39, of Yamadamachi, Iwate Prefecture, was driving a minivan when the tsunami hit the town. Her quick decision to drive her car into a narrow path saved the lives of three people.
Ono was on the way home with her son, Kento, 8, and his classmate sitting on the backseat, when she witnessed a tsunami breaking down the several-meter-high waterfront dike and heading toward them.
"I thought we'd be washed away," Ono recalled.
She put the car into reverse gear and entered a narrow path just wide enough for her car.
Water surged into the U-shaped area, which was enclosed by houses. Within seconds, the van floated to a height equivalent to the second floor of the adjacent buildings, just like an elevator.
The van was pushed up quickly and roughly, but walls of the surrounding houses prevented her car from tipping over.
Ono's van drifted on the water like a boat for about 500 meters, getting stuck on a tree that stopped it from being washed away.
When the water receded, the vehicle "landed on" the debris without losing its balance. Many cars were washed away, lying around her van.
Ono and the two children smashed the car windows to escape, and dashed uphill. "We survived because of the surrounding walls," Ono said. "The wave hit the van not from the side but the front, and we didn't move. These factors might've kept my van from overturning.
"When I almost gave up [on our lives], my son cheerfully said, 'We'll survive.' That helped me gain some hope," Ono said.
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Surfing on the flood
Fifty-six-year-old firefighter Junnosuke Oikawa and five or six of his colleagues were swallowed up by the tsunami floodwaters quickly roiling up to the ceiling of the second floor of their workplace in Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture.
"I thought to myself, 'I can't make my wife a widow; I have to survive for my family,'" said Oikawa, recalling when the water nearly engulfed him.
He said the tsunami came at about 30 kph and pushed him about 500 meters. Then the backwash dragged him toward the sea for about two kilometers.
Oikawa heard roaring and rattling sounds, and saw cars and gas cylinders in the water. He grabbed a nearby pillar to raise himself up to get a breath of air.
Then the next wave hit him. Oikawa reacted by swiftly holding wooden posts in both hands and pulling them together to his chest, managing to ride out the wave in a way akin to surfing.
In his childhood, Oikawa said, he used to tie a plank to his waist to ride the waves for fun at the nearby beach.
"It was popular [among kids growing up] in a seaside town. If I hadn't known to do that, I would've been swallowed up by the water," Oikawa said.
He was rendered unconscious a bit, but was rescued in the town's Togura district, about five kilometers south from where the tsunami first hit him. "Tsunamis are a killer. I thought I died many times," Oikawa said.
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Stuck between ceiling, water
When the massive earthquake struck the Unosumai district in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, Norikichi Ichikawa, 41, and his mother were evacuating to the district's disaster management center, where 54 people died in the ensuing tsunami.
Water broke the windows and entered the building, soon roiling up to the ceiling. Ichikawa's body floated on the surface, with his left side touching the ceiling.
He almost was squashed by the rising water, but held his mother's hand tight.
"I couldn't breathe. I thought I'd die. But I thought I had to save my mother's life at the very least," Ichikawa recalled.
He gradually fell unconscious and thought, "This might be it." In the next breath, water receded to create a slight gap between the ceiling and water surface. He rose up to breathe as much as possible.
The water kept receding, but his mother died, and many bodies were lying around him.
Furniture blocked the center's entrance. For two nights until being rescued, Ichikawa and 25 other survivors remained in the building. Ichikawa said he swallowed too much muddy water and passed black urine for three or four days.
"I will live the rest of my life thinking of my mother, whose life was extinguished without mercy," Ichikawa said.
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Using sunlight as a beacon
Fisherman Yoshinori Yamazaki, 62, was in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture when the tsunami struck, and was violently tossed about in the water. While submerged, he tried to calm down and opened his eyes looking for the sunlight, to indicate the direction of the water surface to try to reach for air.
Yamazaki struggled to break the surface but soon was dragged away by the water. He kept searching for the sunlight.
When the tsunami surged toward him, Yamazaki hopped on the bed of a light truck and held the vehicle's rollover bar. He and the truck immediately were swallowed by torrents of water, and the high-pressure flow pulled his hands away from the post.
The water current apparently was forming whirlpools, and it quickly and forcefully dragged Yamazaki down as he tried to emerge on the surface. He kept looking for the sunlight that would indicate the surface direction. "I remember I tried doing that three times," Yamazaki said.
But he then fell unconscious when his feet touched the ground as the water receded. He was rescued by local residents.
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Wheelchair sits on table
On the first floor of Riverside Shunpo nursing home for the elderly in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, Norie Kanno, 86, was singing karaoke at an event at the facility when the tsunami hit the building.
Kanno, who was wheelchair-bound, and the others evacuated to the kitchen. In less than five minutes, the kitchen was filled with water, which rose higher than Kanno's head. "I thought I should focus on not swallowing water," said Kanno, who covered her mouth with a scarf and closed her eyes in the water.
Kanno nearly fell unconscious from a lack of oxygen. A few minutes later, another big wave hit the kitchen, making her body float. The next thing she knew, she and her wheelchair sat on the one-meter-tall table, on which she used to dine with her housemates. "I survived. It's a miracle," Kanno said.
With the help of nursing home staff, she evacuated to the building's rooftop.
Waiting for rescue, Kanno saw houses being pushed out to sea, driving her to tears.
About 50 people died at the nursing home.
Like Kanno, two other elderly people in wheelchairs survived by floating onto the table merely by chance. "I'd like to live a healthy life for my friends," Kanno said.
(Reported by Hiroshi Uesugi, Masanori Yamashita, Hironori Kanashima, Yosuke Honbu and Kenichiro Tashiro)
(Mar. 30, 2011)
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