Miyako City, Taro Area, Japan

Miyako City and the nearby coastal towns were completely raved by the tsunami generated by the great earthquake in March of 2011. I have had a life-long infatuation with tsunamis. Consequently, I had to see first hand what I had only witnessed through watching hours upon hours of Youtube videos at that time. I encourage you after viewing this post to watch some of these for yourself. There are at least one-hundred or more. I hired a local tour guide to explain it all. He was a resident and was here on March 11, 2011 to witness the event.

March 11, 2011 tsunami breaching the old seawall.. More than 200 people were killed or never found.
Seawalls were constructed to protect the town. The darker walls are older and standing at 10 meters were the ones breached by the 2011 event. The newer walls are quite a bit higher. Whether they are high enough will be determined by the next inevitable tsunami.
The area just inside the seawall is no longer filled with homes and neighborhoods, but rather a baseball field.
The 2011 tsunami height was more than 16 meters (or 53-60 feet) at this point. If you zoom in on the building it is marked by the orange marker nearest the roofline. The tsunamis of 1896 was 15 meters and the one in 1933 was 10 meters. Their heights are also indicated by markers on the building.
The popular hotel Taro Kanko as it existed before the 2011 tsunami.
The hotel as it stands today is now a memorial to that fated event of 2011. As can be seen, the first two floors were completely washed out. The water eventually rose to the 6th floor, completely inundating the bottom 5 floors. The hotel’s owner filmed the event in a never released video from the top floor.
Iron handrails were reshaped by the wave’s force. I wouldn’t have imagined that the water could bend steel in this way.
Inside the hotel I captured this image of the washed-out first and second floors.
The view from the top floor in the hotel where its owner recorded the event. The field below had been home to several hundred families, including my tour guide. After we left the hotel we walked across the field to where his house once stood. So sad.
Today there are many more seawalls protecting this area which is so very prone to suffering another tsunami.

I’m headed north on the main island of Japan. Hope to have an entry from another interesting place.

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Craig

Born in New Jersey in 1956. Lives in Colorado and travels the world.

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