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A statue for 7-year old Yuna

August 11, 2013

 

Father erects statue for daughter missing since 2011 tsunami

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201308110036 

 

By TAKAYUKI KIHARA/ Staff Writer


OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture—Since Norio Kimura cannot be with his youngest daughter, who was swept away by the tsunami of March 11, 2011, he has erected a small stone deity on a hillside to watch over her and keep her company forever.

Yuna was a first-grader at elementary school and was 7 years old. She was washed away by the wall of waves near her home after she returned from school.

Yuna is one of the 208 people who remain unaccounted for in Fukushima Prefecture, two years and five months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

The image of the Jizo guardian deity of children was erected on July 31, ahead of the third Bon holiday season since the disaster.

It stands on a wooded hillside in a coastal area of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, 3.5 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Kimura, 48, could not look for Yuna because he had to evacuate the following day due to the accident at the nuclear plant.

His wife, Miyuki, 37, and father, Wataro, 77, also went missing, but their bodies were later found.

Kimura is evacuating to Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, with Mayu, Yuna’s elder sister, who is 12 years old.

He looked for Yuna along the coast and amid rubble when he was allowed to return to Okuma once every three months. The only belonging he found was one of Yuna’s shoes.

Kimura came up with the idea of erecting the Jizo statue about a year after the disaster.

He wanted Jizo to be with Yuna as a friend because she would feel lonely without anyone beside her. He hopes Jizo will keep a close eye on Yuna forever because he cannot stay with her.

One of his acquaintances had drawn a smiling Jizo on a message card to encourage him. Kimura asked a stonemason to create the image based on the drawing.

Kimura began preparations on the hill behind his former home in May when he was allowed to return to Okuma on his monthly visit.

He erected the image and memorial ahead of "Bon," in which people traditionally recognize ancestral souls, with help from his former neighbors in Okuma and acquaintances in Nagano Prefecture.

The memorial carries the names of Yuna, Miyuki and Wataro, as well as Kimura’s message for the three.

“I was grateful because everyone got together for Yuna and the others,” Kimura said.

The death toll from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami totaled 15,883, and 2,656 people remain unaccounted for in six prefectures.

Police, the Japan Coast Guard and other relief workers have searched for bodies mainly on and around the 11th of every month. But only 102 bodies have been recovered since Sept. 11, 2011, with only four this year.

“We have looked almost everywhere we can on land, such as ditches and ponds,” a senior official of the Miyagi prefectural police said. “All we can do is to find a body washed ashore.”

Yuna is the only person who remains unaccounted for in Okuma. Kimura still looks for Yuna by himself on his monthly visit. He is grateful for the police efforts but has mixed feelings about the ongoing search.

“I wonder whether the search activities should continue amid high levels of radiation because it is becoming difficult to find her,” he said.

In the hardest-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, 2,652 people remain unaccounted for.

For most of them, bereaved families have filed death registrations. In Fukushima Prefecture, registrations have not been submitted for only five persons.

Yuna is among them. Kimura said he knows she will not return home anymore, but he still wants her to remain among the ranks of the living.


By TAKAYUKI KIHARA/ Staff

 

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