Miyagi school, which lost 74 kids in March 2011 tsunami, closed

February 24, 2018

Ishinomaki, Miyagi Pref.- A ceremony was held on Saturday to mark the closure of Okawa municipal elementary school in northeastern Japan, which lost 74 of its 108 students in the March 2011 earthquake-triggered massive tsunami.

The closure of the school in the city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was decided in 2016, with no prospect of a recovery in the number of students following the calamity, which also killed 10 of the school staff.

The ceremony was held at Futamata municipal elementary school in the same city, into which Okawa elementary school will be merged, and attended by current and former students, as well as parents and others. Yorinobu Kagi, principal of Okawa elementary school, returned the school flag to a city government official, and the participants sang the school song.

The disaster-hit building of Okawa elementary school will be conserved as a memorial site by the city government to pass on lessons from the March 11, 2011, catastrophe to future generations. A monument to mark the school closure will be set up.

"It's sad that the school, where I and my children attended, will disappear," said Noriyuki Suzuki, 53, whose second daughter, Mai, died in the tsunami at the age of 12. "But as the school building will be preserved, I'll keep watching our school," he said.

Also among the participants was Makoto Higuchi, 80, from Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, who has sent sunflower seeds to all students at Okawa elementary school every year since 2014.

"I wanted to see them become happy and fine, like sunflowers," Higuchi said, explaining his reason for sending seeds of the flower.

Kagi said, "I hope Futamata elementary school will become a new school that takes in Okawa elementary school's traditions."

Following the disaster, most of the Okawa school district was designated as disaster-vulnerable areas where people are banned from living.

Since 2014, the Okawa school has conducted classes in a makeshift facility built in the premises of the Futamata school. Its pre-closure student number stood at 29.

According to the Miyagi prefectural government, the closure of more than 20 publicly-run elementary and junior high schools in the prefecture has been decided after the disaster. Miyagi was one of the three prefectures hit hardest by the disaster.

Right after the powerful earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011, students at Okawa elementary school were gathered at its playground and stood by there under the instructions of the school staff. The tsunami struck after they started to evacuate toward a river levee, claiming the lives of 74 of the students and 10 school staff members.

In March 2014, bereaved relatives of 23 of the dead students sued the Miyagi prefectural and Ishinomaki city governments for 2.3 billion yen in damages.

In October 2016, Sendai District Court in the prefecture ordered the local governments to pay a total of some 1.4 billion yen in compensation, saying that the school should have evacuated the children in a mountain at the back of the school premises.

With both the plaintiffs and the defense side having filed appeals, Sendai High Court is set to hand down its ruling on April 26. Jiji Press