Opening Ceremony Held for School in Tsunami-Hit Miyagi City

Natori, Miyagi Pref., April 7 (Jiji Press)--A ceremony to celebrate the opening of an integrated municipal elementary and junior high school was held on Saturday in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, which was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. After the Yuriage elementary and junior high schools in northeastern Japan were both damaged by the catastrophic disaster, preparations started in 2012 to merge the schools into a unified elementary through junior high school. "I hope that the school will be a symbol of reconstruction as a ship of hope floating in the region," Natori Mayor Shiro Yamada said at the opening ceremony, which was attended by over 700 students, parents, citizens and others. Up until now, the students of former Yuriage municipal elementary and junior high schools had attended classes in other elementary schools or temporary buildings in the city. Ichika Kikuchi, 14, said that she is very happy to come back to the Yuriage district. "As there are a lot of grades, I'd like to lead (underclassmen) in a responsible way as a student in the highest grade," said Kikuchi, who is in her third year of junior high school. Seiichi Watanabe, 68, who continues to participate in a storytelling activity in Yuriage to share his experiences in the disaster, said that the school will be at the center of the people's lives in the district. Watanabe expressed hope that the students will say it was a good thing that they studied in Yuriage. After the ceremony, students and parents attended a tour of the new school building and showed delight over the building, which uses wood and offers an open feeling. The school showcased items, including a clock from an old school building that stopped at the time of the earthquake, to hand down memories of the disaster. It also installed a monument engraved with the names of 14 students from the former Yuriage junior high school who lost their lives in the disaster. END