Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
A Small Japanese Town, Swallowed By The Sea
Tuesday, 03/29/11 9:10am
Stu Seidel
Two weeks ago, Deputy Managing Editor Stu Seidel flew to Tokyo to oversee NPR's coverage of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan. This past weekend, he visited northern Japan to see for himself the devastation that lined hundreds of miles of the country's Pacific coast.
Along the water's edge in Rikuzentakata, on the coastline of northeastern Japan, green hills rise up to circle a placid bay. In the distance, where the bay opens to the Pacific Ocean, a warship stands sentry, as if to guard the town from any harm. The midmorning sun rises on Japan, just more than two weeks after an earthquake 45 miles offshore triggered a tsunami that swept this town, and so many like it, from existence.
Turning your back on the sea that provided a living for the people of this fishing town, a flat landscape of debris spreads out toward mountains nearly a mile away. There is little to block the view to the mountains.
...
On the second floor of a warehouse, four men and women with laptop computers quietly record what is known about the missing and the dead. One wall is covered with printed pages of the names of the missing. Another holds pages with names of those known to have died. Two men and a woman scan the names of the missing. A woman stands before the names of the dead. Her eyes seem fixed in one place. Her head doesn't move.
Outside, beyond the loading dock, along the driveway to the warehouse, a few daffodils poke out of the soil, heralding the coming of the saddest springtime Rikuzentakata could ever know.
Full text:
http://www.vpr.net/npr/134946960/
Tuesday, 03/29/11 9:10am
Stu Seidel
Two weeks ago, Deputy Managing Editor Stu Seidel flew to Tokyo to oversee NPR's coverage of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan. This past weekend, he visited northern Japan to see for himself the devastation that lined hundreds of miles of the country's Pacific coast.
Along the water's edge in Rikuzentakata, on the coastline of northeastern Japan, green hills rise up to circle a placid bay. In the distance, where the bay opens to the Pacific Ocean, a warship stands sentry, as if to guard the town from any harm. The midmorning sun rises on Japan, just more than two weeks after an earthquake 45 miles offshore triggered a tsunami that swept this town, and so many like it, from existence.
Turning your back on the sea that provided a living for the people of this fishing town, a flat landscape of debris spreads out toward mountains nearly a mile away. There is little to block the view to the mountains.
...
On the second floor of a warehouse, four men and women with laptop computers quietly record what is known about the missing and the dead. One wall is covered with printed pages of the names of the missing. Another holds pages with names of those known to have died. Two men and a woman scan the names of the missing. A woman stands before the names of the dead. Her eyes seem fixed in one place. Her head doesn't move.
Outside, beyond the loading dock, along the driveway to the warehouse, a few daffodils poke out of the soil, heralding the coming of the saddest springtime Rikuzentakata could ever know.
Full text:
http://www.vpr.net/npr/134946960/