by Ryan Nelson
Personal accounts of survival allow us to use primary sources to understand the experience of going through a disaster. Survivors’ stories can tell us more than framed two-dimensional photos and videos can and mostly lack the charged stance that most mass media takes on disasters. However, it is still their story and no matter how truthfully they tell it, some parts will be omitted and some stretched out. It is the disaster through a lens that they choose, but they are the most capable of expressing the emotion felt dealing with a disaster. In addition, the way that someone remembers a disaster can be just as important as what they remember. This is especially true in the March 11th, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Many survivors did so out of pure luck or by being in an advantageous physical location. Of course, many of the survivors felt an enormous amount of suffering and loss, but some flipped the negative on end to see the disaster as a new starting point, like how a forest fire allows for new growth. As the disaster moves farther into the past, remembrance of it continues to change. The event itself was horrific, but even more so, it is the aftermath of rebuilding ones life that can be even more trying and difficult. Below are examples of survivors’ of the 3/11 event stories.
The first story of survival explored is a particularly sad one. Masao Takeda, a man in his 70’s living with his wife in Higashi Matsushima City. He was watching the TV in his home when the earthquake struck. He recognized the quake to be large enough to cause a tsunami so he and his wife fled to the Community Center.
“My wife wanted to take the dog with us but I convinced her that we would worry about the dog once we ensured our safety… She had gone back to get the dog from our house, but our house was swept away by the tsunami… my guess is that she was swept away too. If I realized beforehand, I could have stopped her from running back…I can’t regret it enough. She is still missing.” (1)
This is just one example of many of survivors’ guilt that plagues many of the victims of the 3/11 disaster. Though people away from the disaster might be able to rationalize that it was not his fault that his wife left him, it would be much harder for Takeda to come to terms with his actions or lack thereof. The ideas of “what if” can become overwhelming after a disaster like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In many cases there is no right answer. What if she had gone and saved the dog and returned? What if she hadn’t and felt survivor’s guilt over her lost pet. One can rank choses in hindsight, but in the moment, decisions are made in a split second and the wrong ones can easily lead to death.
Interestingly, Takeda speaks of his life in temporary housing in a more positive manner than one might imagine. He describes, “Although I’m alone without my wife, I’m not lonely. The people at the house often ask me how I am doing and they care a lot about me. I feel gifted to be able to live in such a comfortable environment.” (2). His experience of the disaster is complex. For one, he does feel survivors’ guilt, but also survivors’ gratitude. This appreciation of his situation comes with the return to an idea of normalcy that was taken after the event. As he went from having nothing, now he appreciates any help or interaction with others he can get. This can be partially explained with the Japanese idea of gaman. Gaman, translated roughly to fortitude or patience is a Japanese ideal that stresses the importance of suffering quietly and not expressing ones feelings in an effort for the greater good of a community. With this comes gratefulness for what one has and a stress away from complaining about ones situation. Takeda may both feel sad about his situation but still express thankfulness because of the idea that complaining is not energy well spent.
Not all victims were concerned with just the safety of themselves or their immediate family. Public officials, business owners and managers, doctors and nurses, and teachers all had a larger group of people whose safety they were responsible for. A school nurse, Chizuko Yamaguchi, told her story of the earthquake hitting her nursery school in Higashi Matsushima. She begins with her responsibility: “We woke the children up, broke them into about 5 groups of 20 people each, held them towards ourselves, and protected them with blankets. “Don’t be scared, it’s going to be all right.”(16) However, she admitted that even the adults in the situation were terrified for themselves mentioning, “Having only women besides children, we were all half-screaming while trying to comfort and support the children.” . Positions and roles that would normally be outside of a schools jurisdiction were implemented. As the first night came, it became obvious that the children would have to sleep at the elementary school that they had evacuated to. It seems as if the magnitude of the situation brought out an increased level of bravery and cooperation from both adults and children. She explains that, “As it got dark outside, each of us held one child, and we slept like that.”(16) It wasn’t for 4 days until the last child was picked up, but the school had managed to calm and protect the students in that time. Some of the success that Yamaguchi describes is from disaster planning, but much of it was on the spot improvisation.
Some survivors weren’t in leadership traditional roles like Yamaguchi was when the Tsunami hit, but still managed to help others. Seitaro Omori, a sectional chief at the Ishinomori Manga museum found himself in an unlikely position to help. He found, “20-30 people who escaped the tsunami”, running from the wave as the roads were blocked. After holding onto whatever they could find, the water receded and Omori let them in through a broken window to the shelter of the museum. Watch the clip below to hear his account:
He describes himself as an impromptu leader of the survivors but also there was an egalitarian process of choices citing “ we decided to wait inside to be rescued”. Most of his descriptions are of things he saw outside the museum. “Ships and debris totally blocked roads. A young man could have gone over those to reach downtown, but there were elderly people and children among us”. Omori’s narrative is connected with a feeling of being trapped inside. They weren’t rescued for 5 days, so the feeling of anxiety and probably claustrophobia was forefront for him and those stuck together unconventionally for almost a week. Though he could have focused on life waiting to be rescued, he talks about the safety of the building compared to the terrors outside; something that must have been at the forefront of everyone in the museums thoughts.
The event did not hit all Japanese equally. Though the earthquake was felt through most of Japan, the center of its damage and the tsunami centered on the northeastern coast of the country. However, people all over Japan felt its after-effects. Yuri Akagaki was on a motorcycle on her way to her university for post-graduate studies when the earthquake hit in the major city of Sendai very close to Higashi Matsushima and still in the central disaster zone. She said that she didn’t feel it until She saw stopped cars and heard her cell phone ringing loudly. Watch the video below as she describes a much less graphic version of her experience in the disaster. Pay attention to the way she describes her experience and the experience of her parents and their neighbors on the coast:
As seen above, even Akagaki’s experience of the quake and tsunami was traumatic even though most of her fear came from not being able to contact others who may have been in harms way. This scrambling to contact loved ones in hard hit areas was very common. Many of the seaside communities that were hit were populated with elderly with their children and grandchildren having moved to larger cities such as Sendai and Tokyo. She talks about her parents’ home being OK, but that it was inundated with water up to the second floor. “We were fortunate that our house was ok,” she explains, “but we couldn’t get any insurance money”. She talks about how after the quake it inspired her to take larger social responsibility in her line of study, architecture. But, as she was not directly affected, she notes that in Sendai at least, after three months “memories of the disaster are fading unconsciously” and she and other must make steps to remember it and pass on their thoughts to new generations.
As time passes accounts of survival change because it is hard to come to terms with what happened in such an unpredicted event. Because everyone involved experience was different there cannot be one single narrative. People, even survivors’ ideas of the events are continually shaped from what they hear from others. A critical analysis of survivor stories may be able to create a continuity to experiencing an dealing with a disaster of such magnitude, but it does not wholly explain how it felt to live through one, what forces were at play inside the minds of those who were there, and especially what to do to prevent or survive future disasters. However, the ability of survivors to share their stories is a step towards understanding disasters in general. By taking these stories seriously, we preserve the memory of those who lost their lives and hopefully act with preparedness and integrity in situations that could potentially become disastrous.
To listen to more stories of survival visit The Center For Remembering 3/11
Works Cited
“Experience.” Testimonies of the Great East Japan Earthquake (n.d.): n. pag. Higashi- matsushima City Library. Web.<http://moodle.trincoll.edu/pluginfile.php/282952/mod_resource/content/1/Experience.pdf>. (PG 1-16)
Ishinomori Manga Museum, Ishinomaki, Miyagi. Center For Remembering 3/11, 4 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Apr. 2015. <http://recorder311-e.smt.jp/movies/43/>.
Recorder311 Stories 014. Center For Remembering 3/11, 30 June 2012. Web. 5 Apr. 2015. <http://recorder311-e.smt.jp/movies/687/>.