(TRANSLATION): I did look at the information
being relayed to my car navigation system.
But, well, I am originally from an inland area,
so I didn't have the common sense
that there is the danger of a tsunami after an earthquake happens.
It did look normal.
What's it called - mob psychology?
There were lots of people there.
So it seemed like a safe place.
It didn't seem like a tsunami was going to hit.
I don't think anyone knew.
While I was filming,
I still didn't think about the tsunami.
A fire truck was driving around the area, telling people to evacuate.
The local people began to head for higher ground.
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
was leave their houses.
The nearest place to evacuate is that hill over there.
"OK, then, let's go."
That's the kind of thing I heard.
The people who had made it to the top of the hill
were looking out towards the sea,
pointing at the ocean and asking, "Is that a tsunami?"
They were urging people below
to hurry up and evacuate to the hill as fast as possible.
When I was in my car, there were a lot of people still walking.
I opened the window and yelled that there was a tsunami coming.
When I looked at the river, the water rose up so fast,
it was like it was next to me.
It all happened so quickly.
The river flowing backwards
and the tsunami overflowing
From the point where I saw the tsunami myself to the point
where I got to the top and looked down at the town,
it was completely different.
There was so much water, it felt like it all happened in an instant.
The sound of buildings crashing against each other,
the sound of wooden structures crunching.
There's just no way to say it.
It's difficult to comprehend as a reality.
Was it fear?
It was like a film.
(PEOPLE CRYING AND WAILING)
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
The people who had been calmly working just an hour earlier,
the people who lived here -
in just seconds,
all of that was gone.
(PA ANNOUNCEMENTS)
(TRANSLATION): Then the water started rising.
But I still thought it would be OK, because of the levee.
But as time passed,
the water rose above the levee.
I saw what happened during the Chile earthquake.
And all I could do is flashback to those images.
I knew this was going to be bad.
I don't really remember the sounds
as the water rose up.
But I remember thinking how much I wished it would stop.
but pray to God.
We couldn't do anything in the face of such immense power.
There was nothing to do but yell and scream.
We couldn't contain ourselves.
Then I saw people in cars, trying to reverse away
and getting washed down the street by the water.
I saw terrible things like that.
I knew it was going to get worse.
As the water got higher,
houses and people just got swept up and washed away.
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
I was worried about my home.
So I watched from some stone stairs nearby.
It was strange - when I looked towards the sea,
I couldn't see the shape of the waves.
As the houses and buildings were being destroyed,
dust flew into the air.
All you could see is dust.
It wasn't that I wanted to shoot a video,
rather that I wanted to record the event.
I never thought a tsunami would come to this point.
Then I saw my house and car washed away.
The neighbourhood was rapidly engulfed.
I couldn't believe it.
It had only been three years
since I finally managed to build my own home.
It was surreal.
Everything we had built just got washed away.
Just looking at that was frightening.
It's hard to describe the fear I felt.
I just don't know how to say it.
CRUNCHING AND SPLINTERING
I had never experienced this kind of shock.
I don't know what to say.
It is hard to describe, really.
we didn't think the tsunami would actually reach us
because we lived quite far from the ocean and we were on a hill.
(TRANSLATION): I already knew huge earthquakes could cause a tsunami,
so I knew I had to evacuate as soon as possible.
As I was going up the stairs that led to the high school,
I saw some people filming.
They said they could see the tsunami from there.
Then, I saw a dust cloud,
which meant that houses were being destroyed by the tsunami
I knew a lot of damage was being done,
and I tried to capture the series of events.
Because my family has a particular connection to tsunami,
when this tsunami came,
I decided I wanted to record it for posterity.
So I climbed the stairs halfway up the building
and started taking photos.
All this, I saw through the viewfinder.
When I looked at the train station,
there were buildings just flowing over the top of it.
Where would it stop?
I still had it in my head that my house would survive.
But it just kept pouring in.
(TRANSLATION): When I looked,
water and debris were flowing over the tracks and through the station.
I hurried in through the back door and went to get my daughter.
I yelled at her, "We have to run!"
Most people were so shocked
while others were becoming hysterical,
as their family members hadn't come out of their houses
when the tsunami hit.
The first thing that got sucked up was my shed.
I thought, "It's just a shed, oh well."
At least the house is OK.
And just as I thought that, the house went with it.
The things I was seeing were completely unimaginable.
(CONFUSED SHOUTING)
(TRANSLATION): When we started running,
we assumed that we would be able to outrun it.
But what happened was that the wave completely swallowed us up.
I was desperate.
Fortunately for me,
a roof drifted towards me and went under my body,
as if it was trying to pick me up.
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
So, I was on top of the roof
and the wave took me all the way to the high school.
People who were by the school saw me and pulled me down.
Most of the residents were already at the emergency evacuation centres.
I was on the firetruck
and was directing people over the loudspeaker.
After a while, I drove towards the levee
and checked the water level from the top of the floodgate.
When I got to the top of the levee,
I saw the water had already receded a lot.
Whilst the waves hit the bottom part of the levee,
the water shot up the side
I probably only had five seconds or so to get away.
If I'd got on the truck 20 seconds later,
I don't think I'd be here today.
I knew my duty was to direct people to evacuate.
But I didn't turn off the camera.
I'm actually not really sure why I kept filming.
that we thought could protect against a tsunami.
As a firefighter,
as a father of a child,
I can never forgive the fact that I let children die.
I let elderly die.
I can never forget.
(TRANSLATION): We knew a tsunami was coming.
It suddenly got really silent.
It's hard to imagine such a sudden silence.
It was like all sound had disappeared.
I remember how ominous it was.
(TRANSLATION): It seemed like my husband knew the tsunami was coming
after the earthquake.
After the Chile earthquake, the tsunami was only one metre tall.
I think he thought that the tsunami this time would be the same,
He was interested in filming.
He likes to shoot video and carries his camera all the time.
There was a river nearby.
The Orcuwa river.
It's normally very calm and doesn't change much.
When we saw it then, you could see the riverbed
and the water was pulling back.
I heard them yelling at people to evacuate.
I went around the fish market toward the river bank
The levy was about three metres high.
to come over that.
So, I kept filming.
I didn't think it was going to be such a big tsunami.
On the river, there were small
The boats got pushed along and made a crunching sound
when they collided with each other.
When we saw the water approaching, it flooded the national road,
as two trucks were passing.
Then the water just kept coming.
When I saw overturned boats coming towards me,
I knew something wasn't right.
SIREN SOUNDS
Everyone around was yelling.
"Hurry up, hurry up. Run!"
I thought that we were in danger.
I shouted to my husband, "You have to come to higher ground."
I saw electric wires being cut and falling down.
I was running with the camera and looking back.
Running backwards and filming while I evacuated.
I was heading to the emergency staircase at the school.
It was right near the river and I went and looked over
and I could see the water rising up over the bank.
I thought I might be in trouble here when the wave came over the levy.
Still I wasn't too worried
because I thought it was only a little bit of water.
But, I was wrong.
Quite a lot of water, suddenly gushed over.
I thought, "this is pretty bad."
But, there's nothing I could do about it.
I was amazed and scared by the force of nature.
I was on my bike.
I was heading towards the nearby high school.
You weren't just running, you were running for your life.
Just as it spilled over, I began climbing the staircase.
I kept climbing while filming behind me.
It happened so quickly.
If I had gone any slower, I don't think I would have made it.
There was too much water,
and I couldn't get to the school buildings.
So, I just climbed up a tree.
Watching from the school, you could
disappearing under the waves.
As it rose higher,
you could see people who weren't able to escape,
you could see cars just getting completely swallowed up
by the waves.
We were really afraid that the school would get washed away, too.
All we could do was watch.
We were just shocked.
Speechless...
It felt like the end.
We had lost everything.
I felt the terrible power of nature.
I was not expecting that nature could be this dreadful
sometimes, like during storms,
but we never had such damage. Houses being destroyed.
We could not do anything this time.
All we could do was watch what was happening.
It was so horrible.
I don't know what to say.
Everyone was looking in the direction of the heli-pier
and screaming.
For a second, I'd forgotten that I had my camera with me
but I quickly remembered.
I used the zoom function to see what people were looking at
and saw waves of water.
I knew straight away that it was a tsunami.
I saw piles of cars being swallowed by the muddy water
and coming towards us, very quickly.
It happened really fast.
to where I was.
There were many buildings between where the cars were and me.
So I thought it would stop.
It had never occurred to me that the tsunami would reach us.
It looked surreal.
I honestly couldn't believe it.
It was a big road
You would never have realised it was actually a coastal area.
You could say I was naive,
but even just before it hit there were police out directing traffic.
I could see the tsunami coming towards those cars,
stuck in traffic.
I was really worried about them.
There was nothing I could do.
Some people were screaming as loud as they could
to warn the people in the cars down below.
But they couldn't have heard them,
when I think about it now.
The first time I realised that the tsunami was going to hit,
was when I actually saw it myself.
I looked in my rear view mirror
and saw an even larger wave than the one in front of me.
I didn't know what to do.
I suppose, that's about it.
I think, everyone was really panicking.
It was incredibly quick.
It probably took only, 10 or 20 seconds
from the moment when the water hit my car, to the car being washed away.
There is a video of a woman being washed away, right before my eyes.
At that time, I thought I was going to die.
It was kind of strange, but I didn't really feel panicky myself.
I was quite calm.
I thought, that's how things go, so might as well do as much as I can.
I decided just to sit inside and wait.
I figured that even if my car got swept out by the tsunami,
it might land in some place and I might be able to float to safety.
I saw many cars being swallowed by the water and swept away.
But there wasn't anything we could do.
We even talked amongst ourselves, if there was a way to help,
but nothing could be done.
I had it in my mind that I'd use the car to protect me
as long as possible.
The car would float somewhere safe.
Or, if that was impossible, when the opportunity came, I'd jump out
and float to safety.
I figured I'd have to swim for it.
I remember it being completely dark and the water pouring in.
Then, I escaped from the car.
But, underwater, I couldn't figure out which way was up.
It was probably just a minute that I swam around there in the water
and I thought, I was going to die.
Finally, my face hit the surface and I could breathe.
(TRANSLATION) I ran because I wanted to live, of course.
My cousin had a son who was a town council member
and, unfortunately, he lost his life in the Town Hall.
It's so difficult to see them mourn.
(TRANSLATION) It felt like we were left with nothing.
And, simply just powerless.
That's the feelings I had in my chest.
Right around 6pm, it started to snow.
It was too cold to be outside.
We had all gone back inside to the classrooms to warm up.
Right around that time, we could see fire.
It looked like all of Kesennuma was drenched in flames,
it seemed like we were right in front of it.
It was like being in hell.
We thought any people who had survived the tsunami,
would surely be killed by the flames instead.
We thought it was the end of Kesennuma.
There were over 40 people from our neighbourhood that lost their lives.
(TRANSLATION) It was also very hard to see women,
who had lost their children.
They knew that their children were gone,
but many just couldn't let go of hope
that they were hiding somewhere in the mountains,
or, another safe place.
They spend their nights staying up
waiting for their children to come back.
That was really the toughest thing to watch.
(TRANSLATION) Cars had rolled onto their sides
and on top of buildings.
There was an incredible amount of rubble
and it was difficult to tell what kind of buildings they were from.
Mountains of debris that were far taller than me.
In places, far from the sea,
there were fish that had been washed up from fish farms and such.
The area was just scattered with things that didn't belong there.
That's when I first understood the damage a tsunami could cause.
I could hardly believe it.
(TRANSLATION) I have never felt such hatred towards the sea.
I saw that there were three dead bodies where my house used to be.
I knew all three of them.
One was a firefighter.
I thought this was some kind of sign.
and that after everything was cleaned up, I should hold a mass for them.
(TRANSLATION) There were about 40 emergency evacuation centres
that got washed away.
These evacuation centres were designated 50 years ago
when people assume that tsunami
on the scale of the one from the Chile earthquake would come.
The tsunami, this time, was much larger than anyone expected.
People probably thought they were safe there.
But, instead, they died.
When I think about people who have lost their family or loved ones
in the evacuation centres, I feel extreme sorrow.
SCREAMING AND SHOUTING
A MAN CRIES OUT
SCREAMING AND SHOUTING CONTINUES
(TRANSLATION) The damage this time was really immense.
But we have to stand back up and stand taller than we did before.
We should be mentally prepared for that, living where we do.
Building houses, building factories,
everyone knows doing this puts us at risk.
I feel very strongly about that.
A MAN CRIES OUT
(TRANSLATION) We have nothing now.
We're receiving relief supplies,
but I don't have a sense of value for the things I really need.
I do remember that I used to have this and that.
I just think about things I need day by day.
CAR HORNS HONK
A MAN SHOUTS IN JAPANESE
(TRANSLATION) Humans are strong.
The instinct to live is strong.
I think the city will undoubtedly recover.
The shopping streets,
The jobs people had.
Everyone is doing their best daily to ensure this happens.
No one knows how long it will take,
but I have no doubt that it will be an even better town
than it was before.
SHOUTING
SHOUTING CONTINUES
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
(TRANSLATION) I don't know what's going to happen to our town.
People are always moving away to nearby towns.
That means young people are leaving our town as well.
Can we really rebuild with only elderly people?
It's difficult to imagine.
(TRANSLATION) People are asking, "So what happens now?"
People have some belongings now,
things they have received from others.
But there are still questions about work
or how long we can all live in this temporary housing.
When we leave the housing,
what kind of lifestyle will we end up living?
(TRANSLATION) I have no home and I'm almost 70-years-old.
I don't have any savings
and it's difficult to think about what I'll do from here.
It's something I worry about
I think everyone who lost their homes feels the same way.
WATER SURGES
(TRANSLATION) They say a place like Kesennuma
(SPEAKS JAPANESE)
(TRANSLATION) Most of the people of Kesennuma
make their living through fishing.
Their factories have been washed away
and only a few have been restored.
It will take many years for all of them to be rebuilt.
(TRANSLATION) They say that the elderly speak of the past
and youth speak of the future.
That's what we have to embrace.
Older people are always going on about the way things were,
but we have to think about how to build a new Kesennuma.
We have to focus on the new.
SHOUTING
(TRANSLATION) Only a few days ago, I had a dream.
It wasn't about the tsunami,
but about a flood that reached up into the mountains.
I was trying to run away from the water by going up stone stairs
and climbing trees.
In the dream, it's only me running.
I left everyone behind and was only evacuating myself.
I think, from now on,
I must live having the weight of those lives on my shoulders.
I have responsibility for that and responsibility
to build a new town here.
Volunteers are helping us with the clearing up.
But there's yet to be any kind of support or care
Amongst the people I know, there are probably a dozen or so
experiencing trauma.
VOICES AND SIRENS
(TRANSLATION) This is where I was born and raised.
When I go up to the mountains,
I realise they don't suit me.
Kesennuma is where I can see the Pacific.
It's between the mountains and the sea.
Yes, I'd really like to stay here.
(TRANSLATION) The sea's beautiful, but still scary.
I don't know how much time
Seeing the things I saw during the disaster, I can't help it.
But I know it's nonsense to hold a grudge against the sea.
(TRANSLATION) Our town was covered with water
and completely swallowed
I honestly couldn't comprehend what it was.
Was it retribution?
Was God angry at us for being too happy?
In my mind, I kept trying to make sense of what happened.
(TRANSLATION) My feelings about the sea haven't changed.
It helps us and it has helped us for years.
I don't feel like I despise it.
From this disaster,
living in an area vulnerable to tsunami.
But at the same time, we need to think of ways
to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
(TRANSLATION) I can never forget
but I like the sea.
That hasn't changed.
(TRANSLATION) Our boat was washed away,
but we are going to buy a new one.
So we'll keep our relationship with the sea.
We must keep it. I think there's no other way.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd