アーカイブ: 7月 2011, 07

片側2車線が埋まるほどの車が走っていた
東北自動車道から三陸道に入ると、さらに車の
数が増えた。日本各地のパトカーや自衛隊の
車とすれ違います。三陸道の長町を過ぎた辺りから
周囲の田畑は瓦礫が散乱しています。瓦礫と言っても
遠くから認められるくらい大きいものです。周囲と比べて
かなり高い自動車道が高台として避難した人を救ったことがよく分かります。

三陸道を降りて石巻に入ると、一見普通の地方都市の郊外という感じ
で、大型ショッピングセンターなどはなんら長野辺りと
変わらない日常のようにも見えます。
が、石巻も浜辺に近いあたりを通ると、風景は一変して
瓦礫と作業をする重機と作業関係者以外は人気を感じない
ゴーストタウンとなります。

そして、ほとんど被害を受けていないようにも見える町をいくつか通って
女川に近づくと、随分地盤沈下したらしく、道路は盛り土で高くなり
露地や家に入るには何十センチという段差を下がらなければなりません。
その段差に引っかかって動けなくなる車もありました。
道の脇の海は穏やかですが、この盛り土が無ければ満潮時には一帯が
水浸しでしょう。

女川に入っても暫くは、見える家々は余り壊れているようには見えませんが、
荷を解いたテント村を出てやや低地の信号を越えて道を登りきった辺り
から風景は劇的に一変します。家が無い…。鉄筋の建物らしい残骸もひどく
壊されていて、たまに高速道路で見る事故車のように大きな衝撃の爪跡と
いった様子です。さらに道を下り海に近づくと、写真で見た空襲の跡の
焼け野原のような状況です。僅かに高台の病院のみが残っていますが
その他の建物、駅、全てが消えてしまっています。

瓦礫が取り除かれた道は通れますが、にわかに盛り土された道路は
穴だらけのでこぼこで、乾くと猛烈な粉塵が舞い上がります。
何も無くなったおかげで開けた視界の先には、中腹まで削り取られた
山腹と茶色く枯れた杉の木が見えます。
石巻より遅れていると聞いた復興ですが、一体ここに水道や電気、
ガスを引いて再び住みたいと思えるのだろうかという状況でした。
たとえライフラインが確保されても土地は海よりも低くなって
しまっているのですから。

津波は高さ30メートルほどにも達した様ですが、女川の町の高台に
ある学校や体育館、住宅街は津波の被害にはあいませんでした。そこに
多くの人々が暮らしています。早く穏やかな暮らしが取り戻せるように
祈るばかりです。ボランティアで行くことは行っても、たいしたことは
何も出来ません。自己満足でしか無いようなむなしさも
あります。せめて「ハチドリのひとしずく」になっていれば、と思います。

After Tohoku Motor Way where there were so many vehicles
running on the two lane high way, we went into Sanrikudo.
There were many more cars running including police cars
from every region of Japan and SDF special vehicles. A while
after Nagamachi on the Sanrikudo, many sizable debris were seen
in the rice paddies surrounding the motor way. You can tell this
motor way built higher than those paddies saved the people
running away from the tsunami on the day.

Getting out from the Sanrikudo, we went into the suburb of
Ishinomaki City were the life seemed much the same as
ours here in Naganao. Big shopping malls seemed attracted
many shoppers as usual. But we went on and when we went
through the town near the shore, the scenery changed all of a
sudden and it was so called a ghost town except for the heavy
vehicles and the working people around them. But it was a
ghost town without housings.

Through the towns like this and others which seemed
having had no damage by the tsunami, we got closer to
Onagawa and the road was raised from the original one
in order to avoid high tide due to the land subsidence.
People have to go down from the road to go into the connecting
roads or to go into their houses. We saw some vehicles stuck with
the gap and could not move. The sea seemed calm but without this
embankment the areas would be flooded at high tide.

The houses along the road did not seemed broken even after in
Onagawa just for a while. But once we got out from the temporary
tent houses for the volunteers and passed through a traffic light
located at a lower land, we noticed whole communities just
disappeared after driving up to the top of the uphill road.
There was not a single house at all! It reminded me of the picture
of the cities after heavy bombing. When we came to a flat level
near the bay, there was just one sound building on the top of the
hill that was Onagawa Town Hospital. Other than that everything
seemed disappeared including other buildings, station, everything.

The road was cleared with debris but very bumpy and heavy
dust flared up in the air. The cleared view due to the devastation
by the tsunami, we were able to see the hill slope caved to the middle
of its height and the surrounding dead trees in brown color.
Some said the recovery was slower here than in Ishinomaki but I
wondered who would want to live again here even with water and
electricity restored because the land is now lower than the sea level.

I heard the tsunami here reached about 30m high from the sea level
but the schools and houses on the higher hill from the downtown
luckily stayed away from the devastation and many people were living
at these facilities together. I really hope the day they live calmly
will come soon. As a volunteer worker, I was able to do little. Even
I felt guilty at such huge devastation and the people there
for being powerless and useless, or for maybe having been there for
own self satisfaction, however, it was true that I wished to be able
to do anything here. I only wish if I would become a drop
form a humming bird.