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Remember Japan’s Tohoku earthquake: Visiting the tsunami-stricken area reveals strong links between Georgia

 



Richard Halberstadt features scenes from Dublin, Georgia, and Mayor Phil Best and the Atlanta Global Correspondent of the devastation of the Ishinomaki Community and Information Center. Photo by Trevor Williams

For Richard Halberstadt, the earthquake and tsunami that struck the coast of Japan’s Tohoku region 10 years ago led to a difficult choice: flee to his native England, or stay where he had been his adoptive home since 1993.

The British professor in the coastal city of Ishinomaki made the decision on the latter option, knowing he was fortunate to be alive, not to mention having the option to help.

“In the end I decided that I could not leave my friends here,” he said after consulting with British consular officials in Sendai.

Not only was the devastation wrought by the disaster at stake, but the constant threat of fallout from the flooded Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor more than 80 miles off the coast. He spent a sleepless night thinking about his future.

“I went back to Ishinomaki, and this kind of boosted my place in town,” said Mr. Halberstadt, describing how the tsunami waited first at Ishinomaki Sinsho University and then in a nearby hotel that had been converted into a shelter. Food was difficult to obtain for several days, and electricity and communications were cut off, forcing people to search for news verbally.

However, still, he now runs the Ishinomaki Community and Info Center, which is dedicated to documenting both the trauma of devastation and the resolute rebuilding of the city that suffered the worst casualties from the tsunami that struck March 11, 2011.

“Ishinomaki is a city with many grieving people,” said Mr. Halberstadt, referring to the “dark tourism” that attracts many delegations there to learn about the devastation and recovery efforts.

The city of Ishinomaki, which had a population of about 163,000 before the disaster, had survived about 3,300 of the more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances Japan counted into the disaster. Hundreds of residents are still missing. The names of the dead are inscribed on a memorial recently erected in a memorial park scheduled to open on March 28. The death toll not only includes those who lost their lives by horrific means such as drowning or the impact of a stray debris, but also those who died after their occurrence from suicide caused by stress and other health-related causes.

Global Atlanta spoke with Mr. Halberstadt in 2019 during a visit to the city as part of a broader examination of Georgia’s ties with the Tohoku region.

Thanks in large part to YKK, the Japanese company that makes zippers and architectural products in the state, the effects of the disaster were felt as far away as central Georgia within hours.

In May 2019, Mayor Phil Best visited the YKK AP plant in the sister city of Osaki, Dublin, and exchanged cards with Mayor Yasushi Ito and former Mayor Buichiro Sato, seated in the American flag, who signed the sister city partnership more than 20 years ago. Photo: Trevor Williams

Phil Best, Mayor of Dublin, Ja. He’s the one who got up early. When I wake up around four in the morning. On March 11th, the news was already spreading reports about the disaster that had occurred about an hour earlier, at 2:46 PM JST.

“I called Alex Gregory right away,” he told Global Atlanta, referring to the CEO of YKK America Corp. He led the company’s Western Hemisphere operations from its Marietta base, including the Zipper Factory in Macon and the Architectural Products Factory in Dublin.

In 2019, Best traveled to Miyagi Prefecture at the end of a trip sponsored by the Japan Foundation. The Grassroots Educational Network Fellowship brought leaders from cities, governments, and economic development agencies in the South and Midwest to the country on a week-long journey to deepen their economic and civic ties.

Global Atlanta has followed Mr Best to Dublin’s sister city of Osaki, which is located inland and is home to the YKK AP flagship plant. This huge complex was unharmed during the earthquake, but the region as a whole remained emotionally affected by the devastation. Miyagi Prefecture alone has recorded more than 9,500 deaths, about half of the country’s total number.

As Mr. Halberstadt said, “Everyone has lost someone” and livelihoods and lives have been destroyed. The Great East Japan Earthquake was the costliest in history, causing more than $ 100 billion in financial losses. The saltwater inundated some rural rice farms in the regions to the point where they did not produce rice and rice for five years.

Mayor Best shared a Dublin Fire Management hat with Jin Ito, who chairs the International Osaki Volunteer Committee and hosted visitors to Georgia in 2019.

Mr. Best’s visit to the YKK plant did not focus on the tragedy of 2011, but showed just how the bonds forged during the toughest times could be the most enduring.

The relationship was inaugurated by then-mayors Buichiro Sato of Sanbongi and Bob Walker of Dublin in 1998, shortly after the launch of the YKK plant in Dublin. Mr. Sato visited Dublin in March 2004 and occupied the position of Senior Marshal at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Mr. Best reciprocated two months later.

Fifteen years later that month, after the sister city relationship had resulted in some 170 exchanges between students and civilians, Mr. Sato joined current Mayor Yashushi Ito in welcoming Mr. Best to the city. They joined YKK AP factory leaders on Saturday, and opened the factory’s conference room to exchange gifts and courtesies – despite the fact that it was out of business for the day.

Best distributed his gifts that would inevitably delight the crowd – baseball caps adorned with the Dublin Fire Department crest – as well as a marble paperweight with the city crest and a pen made of wood found during the remodel of Dublin City Hall.

He said at the time, “We are very grateful for our relationship not only with YKK but also with Osaki – and we want you to know how grateful we are for that and look forward to a long-term relationship for years to come.”

Accompanied by IOC volunteers, Jane Ito and Rei Shiga, who have visited Dublin in past years, Mr. Best also traveled to the Ishinomaki Information Center and Library at Sinsho University in the city, where he encountered another poignant landscape of eternal life. Relations between states.

Taylor Anderson’s reading corner in the Ishinomaki Sinsho University Library was first created to commemorate the American teacher who lost her life.

The library has set up a reading corner dedicated to Taylor Anderson, the first confirmed American victim in the disaster.

Ms Anderson, who hails from Richmond, Virginia, had already spent more than two years teaching English in the region as a participant in the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (or JET) program before she died in the tsunami. The 24-year-old was reportedly last seen on her bike after escorting her students to safety.

A memorial fund set up by Taylor’s parents established Taylor Bunko, or reading corners, at nine local schools where she taught, while also supporting youth organizations and scholarship funding as a sign of her love for literature and her desire to bridge the cultures of the United States and Japan.

“We’re still fulfilling her dreams,” said Naomi Sheba, who manages the library and showed Mr. Best some dogwood trees on campus that were among the more than 500 trees planted in the Tohoku region through the Friendship Flowers Project coordinated by the US State Department. .

At a Zoom event organized Thursday by the Japanese American Society in Georgia with the assistance of the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta, Mr. Best recounted the visit to the library as one of its most impactful trips.

“It’s easy to be a partner when things are good,” Mr. Best said during the discussion with representatives from Delta, Global Atlanta and YKK, before the Japanese American Association aired a video set of memorial messages collected from all over Georgia.

“When things are not well and you are still a partner – this is friendship.”

Atlanta-based global editor Trevor Williams, left, and Mayor Phil Best, right, learn about Ishinomaki’s recovery from Richard Halberstadt.

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