10 Years On: Woman Still Waiting for Daughter Lost in Tsunami

Onagawa, Miyagi Pref., March 12 (Jiji Press)--Hiromi Narita was watching an offshore search operation conducted last month, almost 10 years after her only daughter was swept away by the huge tsunami caused by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in March 2011. "My daughter should be somewhere in the sea," Narita, 60, said as she laid a bouquet of red and pink flowers on a levee in the Pacific coastal town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan. On March 11, 2011, her daughter, Emi, then 26, was engulfed by the tsunami after evacuating with her 12 colleagues at 77 Bank <8341> to the roof of the building that housed the bank's Onagawa branch. One of them was rescued, but four were killed in the tsunami. Eight others, including Emi, remain unaccounted for. A decade after the catastrophe, a total of 2,525 people are still unaccounted for in disaster areas. Growing up in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Emi was living in an apartment in the city near her parents' home with her husband after getting married three months before. Knowing that her mother was anxiously looking forward to seeing her first grandchild, Emi told her that she would have three babies. On that day, Emi stopped by her parents' home before going to work. She ate breakfast, picked up a boxed lunch prepared by her mother and headed for her workplace in the neighboring town as her grandmother and mother saw her off. That was the last time Narita saw her daughter. "I'll never forget my daughter," Narita said. "Every time I wash my hands with cold water, it makes me remember that Emi must have felt freezing." The mother never forgets to observe the search missions by police and coastal guard officers, hoping to find her daughter in any way and hug her. Narita often visits Onagawa Bay on weekends with a homemade lunch her daughter loved. She also sends emails every day to her daughter's mobile phone to promise to meet again for sure. "As the town has become clean, I wonder whether the disaster had actually occurred," Narita said. "So it's even more painful when I recall that Emi has gone." "I feel the same feeling, the same pain every day, but I have to get through this by myself," Narita said sadly. END