Everyone’s talking about the Japanese economy and Abenomics, but what’s happening in Tohoku two-plus years after a tsunami, on the heels of the most powerful earthquake in the country’s history, took the lives of some 16,000 people and destroyed almost 300,000 houses?
If you visit the northeastern region of Japan’s main island today, you will see bare earth, with nothing more than a few gutted buildings, a rare pile of debris, and some construction trucks dotting the landscape. If you didn’t know that the area had been hit by a tsunami, you probably wouldn’t even realize that it was once a bustling region where thousands of people lived, worked, and prospered.
The stark landscape suggests that the initial response to the destruction wrought by the tsunami, which involves clearing the debris of houses, roads, power lines, and cars, is almost over. However, the next phase, restoration — rebuilding the community that used to be there, or constructing an entirely new one — is proving to be a daunting task.
Meanwhile, the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has rendered the area in a 20-kilometer radius of the plant uninhabitable, and forced people in Fukushima to live in fear of unknown health risks. A partial blackout at the plant on March 18, apparently caused by a rat, halted the spent fuel pool’s cooling system, sending a chill through people’s hearts. Normalcy was quickly restored, but the incident shows how far the problem is from being solved.
Soon after the tsunami, many people in Japan, including several students, dashed to the affected region to get involved in rescue activities such as removing mud from houses and providing food to people in shelters. I did not. Despite a growing sense of guilt that I was doing nothing, I could not bring myself to get out there. I was too scared to face the harsh realities.
Things changed over time. In the spring of 2012, a friend, who has been working at the Reconstruction Agency as a liaison between government agencies, companies, non-profit organizations, and communities, asked me to document his story. He wanted to organize his thoughts while sharing his experience and knowledge with others trying to aid the restoration process.
Quite naturally, I began visiting the region one or two weekends a month, one place at a time — meeting people, listening to their stories, and writing them up in articles, essays, and case studies. As public interest in the disaster-stricken areas gradually waned, I became more and more interested in learning what is really happening there.
Although dubbed the disaster-stricken area (hisai-chi, in Japanese), as if it was a single place, the region stretches 500 kilometers from north to south. Its vastness and the complexity of the disaster bound what any government can do to help it recover. Those limits have created space for companies, non-profit organizations, and individuals to help tackle problems.
The government’s role has therefore shifted to coordination and resource allocation, rather than direction or control, so other players can make use of their strengths. Some people in Japan have interpreted this as a manifestation of incompetence, but in reality, it shows that the government’s role should change according to the circumstances.
There are enormous differences in recovery and restoration speeds in the region. The key elements that influence the pace of both are the size of the district, the quality of local leadership, the willingness to accept outsiders, and the presence of social entrepreneurs, as I will discuss in future.
For example, Onagawa town in Miyagi prefecture, one of the most severely-affected areas, has been able to agree on a vision for the future. It started working to turn that vision into reality soon after the disaster. The town brought in a lot of external expertise and resources, which has accelerated the community-rebuilding process. If you visit Onagawa, you are bound to feel that things are slowly but steadily changing for the better.
That isn’t the case in the other affected areas. In some places, you may wonder if time has stopped altogether. And, of course, the situation in Fukushima is distinct from, and more complicated than that of the tsunami-hit areas. It’s hard to imagine when things will be normal there again.