790,000 MEMENTOES FROM 2011 JAPAN DISASTER STILL STORED IN HARD-HIT AREAS

MORIOKA (Japan), March 10 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- Some 790,000 items discovered in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in March 2011 remain stored across three prefectures in the hopes that their owners will one day claim them.

According to Kyodo News, municipalities in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima maintain photos and other personal belongings of people involved in the disaster despite having no legal obligation to do so.

Others, however, have disposed of deteriorating items, while some people are considering whether to continue storing the mementoes as the financial burden of preserving them mounts.

A Kyodo News survey conducted across 37 municipalities in the three prefectures most affected by the disaster found that 29 had decided to store lost items -- from certificates to trophies, cameras, stuffed animals and mortuary tablets – following the 2011 disaster.

Since then, at least 2.37 million items have been returned through events aimed at reuniting them with their owners, as well as through other means.

Of 15 municipalities that still hold on to such items, nine, including Rikuzentakata, one of the towns in Iwate hit hardest by the tsunami, and Yamamoto in nearby Miyagi, said they have "all" keepsakes, made up of over 740,000 items. Another six hold some items like photographs, totalling around 50,000.

The Iwate prefectural city of Miyako said one reason it continues to store items is that "people still come looking for them," adding that it has no plans to abandon storing items.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck the Tohoku region, claiming over 22,000 lives and triggering a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.

At the Sanriku Archive Disaster Mitigation Centre in Rikuzentakata, visitors can view a notebook filled with notes from grateful people who came to claim their belongings. The notebook also contains messages from people who still cannot face the disaster 15 years later.

"It's difficult to set a deadline for people's emotions," said Mari Akiyama, who heads the centre.

Police officers, Self-Defence Forces personnel and residents recovered many of the items handled by the facility. Some pieces were placed under damaged houses or other structures to protect them from the weather and prevent further deterioration.

Since then, around 70 to 80 per cent of the objects stored at the facility have been returned, leaving some 68,000 photos and 2,400 items unclaimed. Centre staff have continued to search for the owners of these items by gathering information from visitors and by identifying the locations of the photos or the people pictured in them.

"The item may mean a lot to someone regardless of what it is. Everyone has their own timing when it comes to reclaiming ownership of something," Akiyama said.

Nevertheless, the Kyodo survey revealed that 14 municipalities had disposed of stored items due to their deterioration over time, the decrease in people coming to collect them, and the cost of maintaining storage spaces.

Some keepsakes were thrown away in March 2021, the 10th anniversary of the disaster, while eight municipalities said they have never stored lost items.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO