Volunteering in Minami Sanriku and Kesenuma: An Introduction

Minami Sanriku (南三陸) and Kesennuma (気仙沼) are two cities in the northern part of Japan's main island Honshū, and two of many areas that were stricken by the tsunamis provoked by the Tōhoku earthquake March 11th 2011.

Looking at the beautiful landscape with the trees, mountains and the sea in perfect harmony it is hard to imagine that just a year ago such a horrible disaster actually happened here. But by the woods there is a huge pile of wrecked cars, and when you look at the ground you'll notice that it is covered by houseless foundations, foundations overgrown by weeds. That's when you begin to realize the scale of the damages in the area.

Kesennuma

The foundations of a house used to grow flowers

After the Tōhoku earthquake some newspapers referred to Minami Sanriku as the city that was washed away, and one year after the community both here and in other parts of Tōhoku still struggles with restoring their city back to how it was before the disaster. Some people still live in temporary houses, and a lot of people have left the area for good. There is a lack of manpower in the area, and although there are a large number of available jobs they still struggle with finding enough people who wants to work there. This is where us volunteers comes in, and we help the locals with various types of work in their community.

It is said that it may take as many as ten years for these areas to recover from the disaster last year. Although international media no longer pays a lot of attention to the situation in Tōhoku there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and the local community really appreciate the work done by volunteers.

(My trip to Tōhoku was made possible thanks to support from the Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation!)

A ship next to the road in Kesennuma. And no, it was not placed there on purpose..

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