all wars.” Tragically, it was not. Twenty years later, Germany
started World War II.
During World
War I, much
of the fighting
happened from
trenches, long
ditches dug
into the ground.
Trench warfare
was brutal and
miserable for
soldiers, who
lived in these
muddy pits for
weeks or months
at a time.
British soldiers on the march
#4
THE JAPANESE
TSUNAMI, 2011
On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, the students
and teachers of Kamaishi East Junior High
School, in Kamaishi, Japan, were getting ready
for after-school activities. Fourteen-year-old Aki
Kawasaki was excited about basketball practice.
Kana Sasaki was getting dressed for tennis.
Fumiya Akasaka, captain of the boys’ judo team,
was heading for the gym. Shin Saito, English
teacher and badminton coach, was tying his
shoes. It was a typical Friday afternoon — that is,
until 2:46 P.M., when a massive earthquake began
to rumble twenty miles below the floor of the
Pacific Ocean.
The quake, about forty miles off the
northeastern shore of Japan, was a thousand times
more powerful than the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
It sent shock waves hundreds of miles in every
direction. In Tokyo, office buildings swayed like
blades of grass. Subways stopped underground. In
Kamaishi, a town on Japan’s beautiful northeastern
coast, buildings shook violently. Gaping holes
opened in the streets.
The students and teachers of Kamaishi East
rushed for cover. Computers, books, and furni-
ture crashed to the floor around them. People
screamed, but their cries couldn’t be heard over
the sound of the quake. That was something that
people would talk about for years to come — the
sound of the earthquake’s roar, as if a monstrous
beast had awakened deep inside the earth.
Most earthquakes last for just a few seconds,
blasting out quick bursts of destruction. This
quake was different. It went on and on, like an
endless nightmare. It continued for nearly six
minutes — the shaking, the roaring, the crashing,
the shattering terror. When the earth finally
stopped shaking, there was a moment of eerie
quiet.
Like most schools in Japan, the Kamaishi East
building had been carefully built to withstand
earthquakes. Even after six minutes of violent
shaking, the building stood strong. Fortunately
none of the students and teachers was seriously
injured.
But there was no feeling of relief for Aki,
Kana, Fumiya, or any of the other students at
Kamaishi East. They knew that the disaster was
just beginning.
The quake under the ocean floor had triggered
a tsunami, a series of massive waves. The waves
were hundreds of miles wide and were racing
across the ocean at jet speeds. Just a few yards
high at first, the waves would grow stronger and
bigger. In some places, they would reach as high
as 133 feet as they approached the shore. Within
thirty minutes, the waves would hit Japan’s
northeastern coast with the force of the most
powerful bombs.
EARTHQUAKE WARNINGS
Few places on Earth are as prone to earthquakes
and tsunamis as Japan. Small quakes hit the
country every single day. Most are so mild that
the ground barely shakes. But over the past
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
, a nineteenth-century
woodblock print by Japanese artist Hokusai
century alone, major earthquakes have turned
modern cities to rubble. The worst was in 1923,
when a major quake hit Tokyo. Fires broke out,
and within days much of the city was a smoldering
ruin. More than 140,000 people died. Other major
quakes have caused devastating damage to the
cities of Kyoto and Kobe.
Over the past few decades, Japan has done
more than any other country to protect its citizens
from earthquakes. Building laws are strict. Newer
skyscrapers, schools, and other structures are
designed to sway, rather than crumble, when the
ground below shakes.
Japan also has the world’s most advanced
earthquake-warning system. Sensors around the
country can detect the very first stages of an
earthquake, the first shock waves that happen
minutes before the most serious shaking begins.
Alerts are sent out over cell phones. These few
precious minutes of warning can mean the
difference between life and death. Drivers can
pull off to the side
of a highway. Subway
conductors can halt
their trains. Doctors
and nurses can stop a
delicate surgery before
the shaking starts.
Japan also has a system designed to protect
against tsunamis. In fact, Kamaishi was famous
throughout Japan for the world’s largest tsunami
wall. The gigantic barrier of steel and concrete
was one mile long, 297 feet deep, and rose twenty
feet above the water. It cost one billion dollars and
even earned a spot in the Guinness World Records
as the biggest seawall ever built. Tsunamis had
destroyed the city twice in the past 150 years —
once in 1896, and again in 1933. Town leaders
believed that their new wall would hold back even
the most violent tsunami waves.
But not everyone was so sure.
Signs like these can be
found all along Japan’s
coasts.
The leaders of Kamaishi’s schools had reason
to be especially worried about tsunamis. Several of
the city’s schools were within striking distance
of large waves. If a tsunami hit, students and
teachers would be in grave danger. And so, even
as the giant tsunami wall was being built, the
school leaders were working on their own plan
for keeping students safe. The idea was that they
would turn Kamaishi’s middle school students
into tsunami experts. The more students knew,
school leaders believed, the more likely they would
be to survive if a tsunami struck.
So at Kamaishi East and other middle schools,
tsunami education became a part of every class.
In social studies, students researched the 1933
event and other tsunamis and their effects on the
city. In science, they learned how tsunamis form.
In language arts, they wrote essays about the 1896
tsunami. They drew hazard maps showing the
likely path of the waves. They explored the area
around the school, searching out the highest
points. They even learned to cook soup for people
in disaster shelters.
The school also held frequent tsunami drills.
/> Students were taught to gather outside the school
while teachers took attendance. They would then
wait for an announcement on the loudspeaker
instructing them to walk to the “refuge area,” a
parking lot about a ten-minute walk away.
But when the quake struck, most students
immediately realized that what they had practiced
in the drills would not work. They could tell
that this quake was incredibly powerful, likely
stronger than any recent earthquakes. They had
no doubt that a tsunami was already speeding
right for them. There was no time to stand in
the courtyard. The electricity had been knocked
out, so no announcement would be coming. It
was up to them to lead the escape, a life-or-death
race with the wave. There was not one minute to
spare. With panicked shouts, students urged their
The
coast at
Minamisoma,
Fukushima,
on March
11, 2011
teachers to follow them as they rushed for higher
ground.
“Before I realized I was running, my feet were
moving,” Kana would later say.
Teachers at the elementary school next door
had planned to keep their young students on their
building’s third floor. The sight of the older
students rushing away changed their minds. Soon
hundreds of students and teachers were in a
frantic dash for safety. Older children grabbed the
younger ones and carried them on their backs.
“I thought the tsunami would come,” said Aki.
“I was desperately trying to escape.”
They reached the parking-lot refuge area but
decided that it was not high enough. Again, older
students helped the younger ones, grabbing their
hands, pushing them along.
They continued on, climbing higher into the
hills. They finally came to rest in a parking lot on
a hill. Terrified and out of breath, they had a clear
view of the horrific scene unfolding in their city
just below.
A BLACK RAGING RIVER
The ocean had begun its attack. Just thirty
minutes after the earthquake, a black wave hit.
The tsunami wall crumbled like a sand castle.
Many people had climbed up onto the wall,
believing they’d be safe. All were swept away.
Water rushed into the streets, rising so quickly
that cars, trucks, homes, and people were
swallowed in seconds.
While the
tsunami
floods Iwaki
City, fires
start to
burn.
The water — now a black raging river filled
with debris, boats, and wrecked homes — rushed
deeper into the city and up into the hills. The
students watched in shock as their school was
engulfed. At the elementary school, a car, lifted
by the waters, crashed into the building’s third
floor, exactly where the teachers had planned to
wait with the children after the quake. If they
had stayed, they would have likely been killed.
Similar scenes were unfolding up and down
Japan’s coast. In a matter of minutes, hundreds
of small cities, bustling towns, quaint fishing
villages, and quiet farming communities were
disappearing under the water. The seawater
traveled farther inland than anyone imaged it
could. Miles from the ocean, towns were
overwhelmed.
And then, like a monster returning to its lair,
the water was sucked back into the Pacific Ocean.
Thousands of people who had survived the quake
and the waves were swept out to sea.
In the hours after the quake and the tsunami,
Aki, Kana, and Fumiya stood amid a group
of hundreds of stunned students and teachers.
They eventually made their way to one of the
city’s surviving school buildings, where they found
no food, water, or lights. They spent the night
there, shivering in the cold, terrified for their
families.
They went to another school the next day, and
the full picture of the disaster started to become
clear. They learned that much of Kamaishi was
gone, that hundreds of people had died and many
Up and down
Japan’s coast
were unreal
sights, like
this boat
perched on a
rooftop in the
town of Otsuchi.
more were missing. Most of the students’ homes
were lost. Fourteen students lost one or both
parents. Aki, Kana, and Fumiya were among the
lucky: Their families were safe.
FINDING HOPE
The disaster that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, is
now known as the Great Tohoku Earthquake.
The earthquake was the strongest to ever strike
Japan and the fourth most powerful in all of
recorded history. But it was the tsunami that
caused most of the death and destruction.
Kamaishi East Junior High School students Kana
Sasaki (left), Fumiya Akasaka (center), and
Aki Kawasaki
Approximately eighteen thousand people were
killed. One hundred thousand buildings were
destroyed. In some areas of the coast, the water rose
to a staggering 133 feet. Hundreds of commu-
nities were destroyed — bustling cities, beautiful
villages, vibrant towns, centuries-old neighbor-
hoods. For miles in every direction, there was
nothing left but toxic mud littered with the
wreckage of homes and businesses. Tanker ships
had been dragged miles from the sea. Smashed
cars teetered on buildings.
Japanese
soldiers stand
in the street
to look at
a ship that
blocks the road.
And there was another disaster unfolding, in a
town called Fukushima. Tsunami waves had
badly damaged two nuclear power plants. Toxic
radiation was leaking into the air, endangering
hundreds of thousands of people. As far away as
The streets of Kesennuma City are flooded
after the tsunami.
Tokyo, 150 miles away, many people braced for
a full-blown nuclear meltdown. This kind of
nuclear disaster had happened only once before in
history, in Chernobyl, a town located in what is
now the country of Ukraine. Today, hundreds of
square miles around the ruined Chernobyl power
plant are so poisoned by radiation that no humans
live there. For weeks after the quake and tsunami,
many feared that the same could happen in Japan.
It is hard to imagine the horror and fear that
gripped the country.
To commemorate the first
anniversary of the disaster,
students stood vigil along
the beaches throughout Japan.
But amid the hopelessness, many found
inspiration in the story of the students of Kamaishi
East. Not one student or teacher died in the
disaster. The st
ory of the students quickly spread
around the country. Most agree it was the years of
preparation and the quick-thinking students that
made the difference.
“I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them,”
Mr. Sato said. “And it’s the students who have
given us hope and the strength to move on.”
THE
TSUNAMI
FILES
The events of March 11, 2011, are now
known as the Great Tohoku Earthquake
and Tsunami. It was actually three terrible
disasters bundled together — the powerful
quake, the hundreds-miles-wide tsunami,
and the ongoing nuclear disaster. Years later,
most of the ruined areas have been cleaned
up and rebuilt. But many challenges remain.
Read on to learn more.
The tsunami leveled dozens of towns and
villages along hundreds of miles of the coast.
But today, most have been rebuilt, like the
town of Miyako pictured here.
3
The Death Toll was approximately
eighteen thousand people. Most people died in the
tsunami, not the earthquake.
4
The Force of the earthquake
shifted Earth on its axis.
5
The Wreckage
totaled twenty-five
million tons.
6
The Cost of rebuilding
the affected areas is estimated to top
three hundred billion dollars.
2
The Wave topped 133 feet in some areas,
taller than a nine-story building. It traveled as far
as six miles inland.
1
The Quake measured 9.0 on the Richter
scale, making it the strongest earthquake ever to hit
Japan since record keeping began.
FACTS ABOUT
THE GREAT TOHOKU
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI
TSUNAMI
is a Japanese
word meaning
“harbor
wave.”
JAPAN’S NUCLEAR
DISASTER
Above, Fukushima Daiichi power plant, before
I Survived True Stories: Five Epic Disasters Page 5
