10 Years On: Coronavirus Presents Challenges for Passing on Disaster Lessons

Futaba, Fukushima Pref., Feb. 23 (Jiji Press)--Efforts to pass on lessons learned from the March 2011 major earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident are finding ways to overcome challenges presented by the novel coronavirus crisis, but obstacles remain to make such activities sustainable. Since the disaster almost 10 years ago, over 270 facilities have sprung up in the northeastern prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, which were hit hardest by the disaster, to pass on the lessons to Japanese and international visitors. "We don't know when and where the next disaster may occur," Hiroko Ishikawa, a stroyteller at one such facility in the town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, told visitors on Feb. 12. Ishikawa, 62, wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, showed photographs of the tsunami she took while escaping from her home to higher ground in Iwaki, also in Fukushima. "I want people to put their own lives above all else and evacuate," she said. The facility, which opened in September last year, has been visited by some 35,000 people while taking infection prevention measures such as urging the use of disinfectant and checking visitors' body temperatures. A member of the facility's management said that oral presentations by storytellers, given four times a day, enable visitors to "experience memories of the disaster and understand it as something related to themselves." Minami Sanriku Hotel Kanyo, in the Pacific coastal town of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, has been operating daily bus tours that visit areas affected by the disaster. Reservations for some 6,000 people were canceled between January and March, however, due to the coronavirus epidemic. It switched to holding online disaster prevention workshops. "It is difficult to convey stories such as 'we had to escape this high' without being there," staff member Shun Ito, 45, said. According to a survey by the 3.11 Memorial Network, an association of groups and individuals working to pass on lessons from the disaster, the number of participants in educational programs hosted by storytellers has been on the decline since peaking in 2013, although the number of visitors to memorial facilities is on the rise. "One of the reasons is that it has become difficult to see the scars from the disaster due to progress in reconstruction," a representative from the network said. "Many groups are seeing financial difficulties due to the additional blow of the coronavirus crisis, and the government aid is not enough." A nonprofit organization of storytellers in the town of Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, one of the municipalities placed under an evacuation order due to the triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, had many people cancel bookings for guided tour due to the coronavirus crisis. "Many people lost income, and we are barely getting by with state and other subsidies," Yoshiko Aoki, 73, head of the organization, said. "The lessons won't be passed on if there are just exhibits and there is no one to explain what happened," Aoki said, adding that civil groups and local governments need to promote cooperation further. END