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Britain's Prince William stood atop a hill Sunday in Miyagi Prefecture, stretched below him barren land known as the "Bay of Destruction," where a tsunami swept ashore four years ago.
On the last leg of his four-day visit to Japan, William laid a bouquet near a shrine gate that overlooks the bay to commemorate the victims. Of the nearly 19,000 people who died in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, nearly 3,300 were residents of the coastal town of Ishinomaki. About 22,000 lost their homes.
The tragedy of Ishinomaki has been repeated across the shoreline, where communities are still trying to rebuild, mourning lost lives and worried about the future, as the younger generation leaves in droves. Thousands of people are still living in temporary housing and many are dependent on aid for food and clothing.
William, who earlier visited more lively and modern spots in Tokyo, had insisted that his first ever trip to Japan include the tsunami-stricken region.
Teruko Sekiguchi, a 42-year-old housewife and Ishinomaki resident, waited for the prince's arrival on top of the hill in the cold rain for more than hour. She was touched he would come all the way out to the disaster region.
"He is gorgeous. You can feel his kindness," she said.
When the tsunami hit, Sekiguchi fled to a nearby junior high school and waited for a week, feeling miserable, not even knowing whether her husband, a schoolteacher, had survived. When he finally came to find her, she was so overjoyed she just cried and couldn't even walk toward him, she recalled.
Although the area below the hill, previously filled with small homes, has been cleaned of debris, no one will live there again. Plans are still being studied to turn it into a park.
"It's like the area has been finally cleaned up enough into a white canvas so we can start painting on it," said Kimio Abe, who heads his own company installing heating and air conditioning.
Abe was also among the crowd of about 80 people waiting on hilltop for the prince. Abe's home, near the hill, was also half destroyed by the tsunami, but he fixed it up and still lives in one room with his wife.
Earlier in the day, William visited a local newspaper, which had produced handwritten newsletters right after the tsunami to keep communication going.
William wanted to know what the journalists had done, what the rescue operations was like, as well as the personal background of Hiroyuki Takeuchi, a journalist at the Ishinomaki Hibi newspaper.
"It remains with you forever. You remember where you were. It must have been unbelievably terrifying for you and all the others," William told Takeuchi.
Akemi Solloway, founder of the London-based Aid for Japan, which supports tsunami orphans, said William's visit will not only provide a morale boost for the residents, but also reassurance that their plight has not been forgotten and renewed international awareness of their daily struggles.
William later went to another tsunami-hit coastal town, Onagawa, welcomed by a traditional lion dance to the cheerful music of wooden flutes and drums.
At a shopping area that sold local goods by storekeepers trying to turn their lives around, he rang a bell that survived the tsunami, called the "Chime of Hope."
The prince met a couple whose children died in the tsunami. He offered them his sympathy and said that he, too, had lost a member of his family in a tragic way, NHK reported. Local children presented him with a paper crane at Hiyoriyama Park in Ishinomaki.
William returned by bullet train to Tokyo and later Sunday left on a visit to Beijing.
William will leave Japan for China on Sunday night.
© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
11 Comments
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Yubaru
I for one am glad that he visited there in the hope that the press coverage gives a reminder to those in the national government that have the power to change things are embarrassed into action!
4 years is a very long time to be without hope.
smithinjapan
Good on him, and doubly good for insisting that this trip include a visit to the disaster hit region and its people. Sad and moving stories about the survivors.
Where was Abe for this part of the visit, just out of curiousity? He took the Prince to a ryoukan and to an area of Fukushima outside the evacuation zone as a promotional bit, but he also needs to be there, visiting and helping the people. Did he bail out beforehand?
bjohnson23
While it's nice that he visited the area, the plot behind is not as sincere since its nothing short of what is expected of a royal to the subjects and common people. This is only all a publicity stunt to promote the future rise and roles of royalty and to let common people know their place. On the other hand if this is what it takes to get people not forget the surviving victims one does as they can.
harvey pekar
William has never struck me as someone who's out for publicity.
Of course he's posed for photos and he kissed his bride for the cameras and pics of baby George have been sold, but I believe that he's a prince in the modern world and he's learned from his mother, people are interested in you and you have to give the public a wink and smile and they'll love you.
But when he talks about the issues that matter to him or has visited areas in need, he has always appeared sincere, to me at least. What he can he actually do for these areas?
That's where the wink and smile comes in handy. Give the press the glamour they're after and then they'll give you the air time for matters you want to show, parts of the world like Miyagi and the important issues people are forgetting.
Yubaru
Wow, talk about jaded here.
Covering one's butt here huh?
Tsuyoshi Shima
Thanks for coming to my prefecture.
JohnDigsJapan
Thanks for visiting Ishinomaki. I did so on 3/11/12 and every year since. I'll do so again in April.
Yoshitsune
@bjohnson
This is only all a publicity stunt to promote the future rise and roles of royalty and to let common people know their place
Hi mate,
A few of my friends met Prince William today (in their capacities as directors of the Ishinomaki-based NPO up there that I volunteered with). One of them is British, and definitely more of the cynical bent than the the flag-waving patriotic bent. His feeling after their conversation was that William's motives were sincere, and that he was there on his own insistence and without any of the agenda that a politician might have visited with.
There's nothing negative about this story. Good to see something nice in the news about Tohoku, even if it is only a visit by foreign royalty
slumdog
? This was a great way to keep these people right smack dab in the public eye, where they should be. I think it is wonderful that he went and I am sure that is how the Tohoku people feel as well. How many times have you been there yourself to talk to the residents?
Tessa
Good boy, William. I know you've heard this a million times but ... your Mum would be proud.
TorafusuTorasan
@smithinjapan, Abe "also needs to be there, visiting and helping the people"
Yeah, but the photogenic youngish prince gets all the attention. Most non-JT media sources decided to include Abe.
See the cover of Yomiuri's Japan News on Sunday, March 1. Color picture of business suited William and at least six more suits (led by PM Abe) surrounding a child with a caption that reads "at Smile Kids Park in Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture, where he visited with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe."
Did you think William would be heading up the coast with a backpack like a tourist? Near a toxic nuke facility?