After the Tsunami: Nothing to Do but Start Again

(Corrects the measure of yearly earthquakes in Kamaishi in paragraph 15.)

Kenji Sano was two years old the first time his home was destroyed. His family had a small wood and rice paper house in Kamaishi, right on the town's main street, parallel to the port and near the ancient blast furnaces that produced iron used in everything from samurai swords to rails for high-speed bullet trains. Sano hid amid the tombstones on the Buddhist hillside, clutching his mother as the tsunami of Mar. 3, 1933, swept his town away. Later, on the spot where his mother helped burn the bodies recovered from the wreckage, the survivors placed two steel Bodhisattvas, commemorating the high-water mark. Little Kenji-san sat before the arch of the temple gate, watching the smoke.