6/25 Minami Sanriku Beach Cleanup and Kamiwarizaki Camp

My apologies for the late post; there were many attempts to upload these pictures but it kept failing.

We started the morning on a drizzly morning in Kesennuma. Luckily it started to clear up as we began to leave.

Returning to Minami Sanriku for the beach clean up was a treat. We got to see many familiar faces and accomplish a lot.

On our drive to our last stop of the day, our driver pulled off to the side of the road to tells of this government building.

After the earthquake, community leaders swiftly gathered to start planning how to approach the recovery effort. During their meetings, they learned that there was an imminent threat of a tsunami approximately 10 ft high. Because their location was fairly inland and the building was 40 ft tall, they decided to stay in the building and start planning for the evacuation of the town. Soon they learned the height would be closer to 20 ft and they moved to the upper floors. The tsunami that struck was closer to 50 ft. Survivors clung to an antenna at the top of the building while one brave individual continued to make announcements over the community public address system of the true height of the tsunami and the need to evacuate even higher than planned.

We stopped again at a town called Togura. We learned that the students there had just practiced their evacuation drill and marched up to where we stood. The wave came up even higher than this and they had to scramble to even higher ground next to a shrine. While up there some students spotted a body of a firefighter clinging onto some debris swept from the next town over. They retrieved him and administered CPR and performed measures to prevent hypothermia until he recovered. Later it was realized that it was the same firefighter who visited their school to teach them CPR just two months earlier.

The gate of the shrine that the students had to run up to.

We arrived at our campsite and met the Rainbow For Japan Kids alumni who were already waiting for us. The camp is adjacent to a beautiful rocky coastline. 

After some exploration, we had a meal in the dining hall... This is no Camp Erdman.

The cabins are really tiny. I placed my camera on the far end and took this picture. Four of us stayed here overnight.

We had some fireworks after dinner.