FEATURE: Innkeeper rebuilds after scrape with tsunami, saving guests

By Takehiko Kambayashi, dpa

   Kamaishi, Japan (dpa) – Innkeeper Akiko Iwasaki relied on her intuition and the wisdom of her grandparents in deciding to urge her guests and employees to climb a hill before the tsunami hit.

   Her ryokan, or Japanese-style inn, “was shaking badly and for a very long time” when a magnitude-9 earthquake struck north-eastern Japan on March 11, Iwasaki recalled.

   “Plates started to fall from shelves, which had never happened before,” she said. “The quake seemed larger than publicly announced.”

   No tsunami had ever reached her inn, which faces the ocean from above the coastline of Kamaishi, 450 kilometres north-east of Tokyo. None had risen 19 metres before.

   Still, Iwasaki, who grew up with old tales of tsunami damage, feared the worst and urged her staff and guests to evacuate.

   Her survival story of a year ago is one in which all that separated her from death was intuition and dumb luck. It also put her on a determined course to rebuild not only her own inn but that of her community as well.

   Her employees led guests out of the ryokan to stairs on the slope behind the inn even though the local government had designated the reinforced concrete building as an emergency refuge.

   “My grandparents used to tell me to climb up the hill whenever there is a threat of a tsunami,” she said.

   When Iwasaki noticed some neighbours were still at the bottom of the hill, she went back to get them.

   Before she reached them, Kamaishi was engulfed by the tsunami. But Iwasaki found herself under a capsized boat and was able to breathe. She managed to survive without injuries. Few others were so lucky.

   Iwasaki said she regrets letting three employees go home before the tsunami, which authorities had estimated would reach 3 metres. The three employees died when the 19-metre wave struck.

   Other staff members survived, but most lost one or more of their relatives.

   In Kamaishi alone, a city of 37,900 people, more than 1,000 died or went missing while about 6,300 were still living in temporary housing a year after the disaster.

   The catastrophe ravaged north-eastern Japan, leaving a total of more than 15,800 dead and nearly 3,400 missing. The region is still struggling to recover.

   Kamaishi’s rehabilitation has been slow in part because of a delay in government funding, local officials said.

   Iwasaki said she had a feeling that a giant wave was coming. When a 1993 tsunami struck Okushiri Island in northern Japan, leaving about 200 people dead, she started to think more seriously about the risks of waves striking her city.

   Iwasaki had a geological survey conducted before deciding to build her four-storey inn. She also ordered stairs installed on the slope behind the building to provide an evacuation route.

   It was completed in mid-1995, months after a magnitude-7.3 quake devastated the port city of Kobe in western Japan, killing about 6,400 people.

   Her precautions required a large investment.

   “In Kamaishi, I’m well-known as an innkeeper who is heavily in debt,” Iwasaki said with a wry smile.

   “I invested to protect the lives of our guests,” she said. “That is of major importance in this business.”

   Her investment paid off. Last year’s tsunami reached her inn’s second floor, but it remained standing. A two-storey wooden guesthouse next door, which her parents built in 1963, was swept away by the wave along with most other structures in the area.

   After the water subsided, it was hard for some to imagine ever rebuilding.

   “Facing the large scale of devastation, I was unable to think of reopening” the inn, employee Satoshi Ito said.

   But armies of volunteers pitched in to clear it of mud and debris.

   “We are so grateful for the volunteers,” Iwasaki said. “They came from all over the country.”

   Manabu Saito, director of a non-profit organization based in the northern town of Sapporo who spent three months in the quake-hit area, said he believed the volunteers were “moved by Iwasaki’s positive and hard-working attitude.”

   The inn reopened in early January.

   “Not only did we want to be back, but also I have a feeling that this land is beckoning us to come back,” Iwasaki said.

   “Our ancestors don’t want to see this area become a ghost town,” she said. “When I stand on this disaster-struck land, I gain strength and determine to live strongly again.”