From the people's point of view
Japan earthquake and tsunami: 'I miss hearing my children coming home from school'
The siren that blared out from the tower alongside Okawa Elementary School was strident and unmistakable.
This is an article written By Julian Ryall in Ishinomaki, north-east Japan on 02 Mar 2012, about how the tsunami affected a primary school.
Minutes after the Great East Japan Earthquake had shaken this community so violently that children and teachers fell to their knees and shielded themselves from everything that was falling, a far more serious danger was rapidly approaching.
None of the 108 children at the school had experienced an earth tremor of magnitude 9 before but, as all Japanese pupils are trained to do, they responded in accordance with the emergency plan and quickly assembled in the playground. By this time, the massive wave was roaring into the bay at the mouth of the Kitakami River and beginning its sweep inland.
A heated disagreement reportedly delayed their next steps, with a senior teacher insisting that they should make for higher ground close to the bridge over the river, while another teacher argued the children should climb the wooded hill that rises steeply behind the school.
The delay proved fatal. With the tsunami ripping through the 110 homes that lay between the school and the coast and broaching the dyke, the children belatedly made for the bridge but were engulfed.
Seventy pupils were killed and, one year later, another four are still missing. Ten teachers were among the dead and another has still not been found.
The siren that blared out from the tower alongside Okawa Elementary School was strident and unmistakable.
This is an article written By Julian Ryall in Ishinomaki, north-east Japan on 02 Mar 2012, about how the tsunami affected a primary school.
Minutes after the Great East Japan Earthquake had shaken this community so violently that children and teachers fell to their knees and shielded themselves from everything that was falling, a far more serious danger was rapidly approaching.
None of the 108 children at the school had experienced an earth tremor of magnitude 9 before but, as all Japanese pupils are trained to do, they responded in accordance with the emergency plan and quickly assembled in the playground. By this time, the massive wave was roaring into the bay at the mouth of the Kitakami River and beginning its sweep inland.
A heated disagreement reportedly delayed their next steps, with a senior teacher insisting that they should make for higher ground close to the bridge over the river, while another teacher argued the children should climb the wooded hill that rises steeply behind the school.
The delay proved fatal. With the tsunami ripping through the 110 homes that lay between the school and the coast and broaching the dyke, the children belatedly made for the bridge but were engulfed.
Seventy pupils were killed and, one year later, another four are still missing. Ten teachers were among the dead and another has still not been found.