Yamashita Daini Elementary School, whose students were evacuated by car, is pictured on April 21. (Mainichi)
YAMAMOTO, Miyagi -- In this idyllic Miyagi Prefecture town on the border with Fukushima Prefecture, the decisions and actions of leaders at two coastal elementary schools saved the lives of students and staff from tsunamis that washed over breakwaters following the massive quake that struck northeast Japan on March 11.
When the school began to shake violently at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, the assistant principal at Yamashita Daini Elementary School grabbed a microphone linked to the school's public address system. "Take cover under your desks!" he said, and turned on the television. It shook too much, however, for him to decipher anything on the screen. Another teacher, Kunio Ota, dashed out of the teachers' office toward the first graders' classrooms. He could hear children's cries.
When the shaking stopped, the students and staff all gathered in the schoolyard, just as they'd practiced during their emergency drills. On his final walk-through of the school building to make sure there were no stragglers, Ota learned from a television in one of the first-grade classrooms that a major tsunami warning had been issued.
By 3:10 p.m., parents were arriving at school to collect their children. Since school policy dictates that students cannot be handed over to guardians without identity checks, teachers tediously checked names off a list of family members before handing off students.
It was then that someone bellowed, "What are you doing?! Get out of here! There's going to be a tsunami!" It was a local resident who had come running to the school.
"I realized then that we didn't have time to be doing what we were doing," Ota recalled. "If that man hadn't yelled at us at that moment, we might all have died."
Going up to the roof was not an option, because it was tiled. The principal, Takao Watanabe, quickly decided to start transporting the students to safety.
"Teachers who have cars here, take as many children as you can and drive them to the town office," he said. "Other teachers, take the remaining children with you on foot in the same direction."
The town office was located on a hill, some four kilometers from the school. Around 70 students whose parents had not come for them were left in the care of the school staff. Six teachers took as many children as they could in their cars, and the vice principal and four other staff left the school on foot with the remaining children.
Seiko Iwasa, who chairs the PTA, was heading toward the school when he ran into the vice principal with a group of children rushing for higher ground. At the vice principal's request, Iwasa returned home to get his minivan. When he caught up with the last of the students with his car and opened the sliding door, he heard what sounded like huge thunderclaps that went on forever -- the sound of an approaching tsunami. The dozen or so children who had just climbed into the car began to cry.
The six teachers continued to shuttle back and forth in their cars, carrying students to higher ground. Third grader Shino Watanabe, who was among a group of students picked up by one of the teachers near the train station located about 500 meters northwest of the school, said, "After I got in the car, I saw blue waves swallowing up houses. I told the teacher to hurry."
As it turned out, it had been a particularly close call for the vice principal, who was bringing up the rear with the last group of students. He, too, was picked up near the train station. "I found out afterwards that the tsunami reached the station only five or 10 minutes later," he said. "If we'd all tried to walk to town hall on foot, there's no way we would've made it."
Meanwhile, Watanabe, the principal, had stayed behind at the school by himself to let parents who might come looking for their children know that they had been evacuated. After dealing with 20 or so parents at the school gate, he turned around to see waves surging over the 6.2-meter-high breakwater just 300 meters away. He ran to the second floor of the school and grabbed a book from the library, hoping it would help him stay afloat when the wave hit. Luckily, the water never got to the second floor.
"I was going to use the book as a raft if it ever came to that," he said. "But I knew that if more waves were to come, I stood no chance."
Watanabe was rescued the next morning by a Self-Defense Forces (SDF) helicopter.
Located five kilometers south of Yamashita Daini Elementary School is Nakahama Elementary School. When the temblor hit, principal Takeshi Inoue rushed out of his office. The television in the teachers' office warned that a tsunami was expected to reach nearby shores in 10 minutes.
According to the school's emergency manual, students are to be evacuated to a junior high school located 1.5 kilometers northeast of Nakahama Elementary if tsunamis are not expected to strike for 20 minutes or longer. On March 11, however, they had only half that time. Judging that it would be impossible for the younger students to make it in time, the principal instructed everyone to go up to the school roof.
About 90 people, including students, staff and local residents, filled the roof of the school. Twenty minutes went by with no tsunami, then 30. Looking back, the principal said that as time passed and tensions waned, students and parents who had joined them became chatty or looked out toward the ocean. But, he said, "No one suggested that we go back downstairs." He, for one, was certain that the waves would come, as there had been television reports that tsunamis were already reaching other areas.
The vice principal, Yasuhiro Sasamori, remembers that it was 3:40 p.m. when the first round of tsunamis knocked down the pine trees on the beach. Cries went up from the group on the roof, and students and parents were then led into a 200-square-meter attic space. The first wave barely soaked the foundations of the building, which were raised about two meters from ground level as an anti-tsunami measure. The second surge, however, which arrived a minute later, came up all the way to the second floor.
"I heard terrible sounds of glass breaking and desks flipping over," said Hiroki Kobayashi, a fifth grader at the school. "A lot of kids were covering their ears."
Tension reached its peak as some members of the group caught sight of an enormous wave that was easily twice the size of the last one. Sasamori overheard someone whisper, "This is the end." It was clear that if the wave reached the school without breaking, it would swallow it whole. Inoue prayed that the undertow of the last surge would break the one approaching.
In the next instant, the third tsunami hit the backwash of the preceding one, and the waves shrank. Still, the tsunami reached the second floor and sprayed water onto the roof.
The following morning, everyone on the roof was taken to safety by SDF helicopters. Teacher Yasunori Kusaka said he'd never forget what he saw when he looked down from the helicopter. "There was nothing left, except for our school. Even now, I'm surprised that we made it."
Click here for the original Japanese story
英訳