More Downtown Ofunato

We worked a second day to complete our debris-removal job near the downtown. The back yard of a print shop had become home to lots of debris from the shop and elsewhere. The owner lost his house lower down in the town along with his car and boat. All his family are safe though.

After finishing the debris job we hiked back up to the area where our canal crew were working and gave them a hand dredging the canals.

Sidewalk plaque commemorating the May 1960
tsunami that followed the big Chile earthquake

Partially cleared debris behind the print shop

Shinpei and Stefan doing the final cleanup

Showing the completed job to the owner

Heading to the canals

Flowers have grown in the debris since the tsunami

Car floated into a house

Small hill near work site-- designated tsunami
escape area. Note the blue sign at bottom.

A couple young ladies in a car drove by and inquired what we were doing in the canals. A while later they drove back and handed us several shopping bags full of cold drinks and snacks. So
kind.

Canal crew enjoying treats

Downtown Ofunato

We moved further south toward the center of the city and the mouth of the bay to work yesterday. Working all week on the canals and ditches in a considerably cleaned up section of town, we've had a false impression of the progress made.

Our new work location is in an area that hasn't been cleaned up as much. Many destroyed buildings haven't been demolished, and cars and other debris are piled everywhere. There are numerous signs of the tsunami's power.

Waiting for the crew bus

On the way to work site

Downtown Ofunato

Our assignment was to clear the rubble in an area behind a house and to demolish a large garden shed that had been deposited there by the waves. The house contained a print shop, so much of the rubble was paper.

Demolishing a shed

Reinforced cement utility pole snapped like a chopstick

Tossing rubble

There was a house nearby that had been ripped from its foundation and tossed on its side. Totally intact, with curtains still hanging, it shows how strong are the earthquake-resistant construction techniques used here. Nothing stops a tsunami though. The next three pics are of that house:






The house we were working at was on a small hill now surrounded by a landscape of destruction. Above the water line, everything is as it was before and life goes on. For those whose property was partially flooded, the cleanup continues.

Just beyond the destruction a barber shop is open for business and a functioning Coke machine stands in front.

Floating rubble was deposited on the roof of this building which stands next to the tsunami warning sirens

This house was deposited here from its original location across the street to the right and behind the photographer

With Habitat in the Trenches

Habitat for Humanity has an active chapter in Japan. They take trips to other countries in the region to help build homes. One of the reasons we work weekends and take Tuesdays as our day off is to allow them to partner with us on weekends.

Yesterday they sent 22 volunteers from the Tokyo area to work with us. They spent all night on a hired bus to get here. The generous administration at the Fukushinosato Center loaned us an extra room for the Habitat volunteers to sleep in.


Half the Habitat team headed to nearby Rikuzentakata to help clear debris fromrice fields. The other half came with us to the destroyed downtown area to help clear the canals and ditches. This is way different than their usual work, but they held up well in the trenches.


The kind folks at the neighborhood Community Center let us use their facility for lunch (and a nap) again. I presented them with some genuine maple sugar to taste and explained how it is made.

Near the block we were working on (totally wiped clear of buildings) there is a small promontory with a few houses on it. You can see in the picture that the tsunami reached halfway up the hill. It must have been quite frightening to see the waters raging up the hill and not know where they would stop. A local resident told me that 30 people were lost on the single block that we are working.

Railroad tracks bent by tsunami

House Work

The city of Ofunato is located at the head of a narrow bay. A river comes down to meet the bay and the town is spread out along both sides of the estuary. The town area is quite narrow and flanked on both sides by extremely steep mountains. You can look at it on the map here (Our base is located in Sakari.).

The tsunami wave here was estimated in excess of 77 feet. Funneled in by the narrow bay, the tsunami continued inland for almost two miles.

Local geography determined whether a house survived or not. Entire swathes of the town were totally destroyed. In some places, a house on a hill or slightly higher elevation managed to remain standing but lost windows and doors and got a serious dose of mud and debris. Maybe a third of the houses in the town were lost.

Most of the destroyed buildings have already been demolished by heavy equipment and the scrap metal piled nearby, ready for pickup. Crews continue work daily. It looks like they've done more work here in just a couple months than has been done in Haiti in a year and a half. In those cases where a house has been damaged but is deemed salvageable, we are able to help save the house by gutting it to let it dry out.

Gutting involves removing the ceilings, floors, and walls and removing any exposed nails. We also spray the interior with a product that kills bacteria and inhibits the growth of mold.

Most houses seem to be built without a basement. There are cement footings may a couple feet high and various support posts spotted around. Vents in the outer cement wall allow air to circulate. This is a snowy place in winter, so insulation is often installed under the floorboards. Usually, the surface under the house is not concrete but merely gravel.

The water from the flooding entered the vents and soaked the gravel surface, depositing a layer of contaminated mud. One of our jobs when gutting a house is to remove the layer of mud. Sometimes we are able to remove flooring in order to access the mud. Other times, a volunteer tunnel rat is sent down to work their way in the two-foot high space and scrape out the mud. The mud is sent outside in buckets. Many homeowners spread lime to help decontaminate.

Much of the woodwork in these homes is really beautiful, painstakingly done by hand. There are many wood beams and posts connected using mortise and tenon techniques. Considerable cross-bracing is evident and one notices metal fixtures to secure the wood to the foundation. Much of this would help resist a hurricane or earthquake but, of course, a tsunami is a much more forceful phenomenon.

Buildings on higher ground fared better

Second floor gouged by floating car/boat/houseWaterlogged tatami mats

Finishing a gutting job

Front is already boarded up and has a door

Break time in the rubble

Break-time treats from homeowner

Working on door frames

Working on ceilings

Removing mud under floor

Removing old beams

Ditch Diggers

The rainy season will soon be here and the system of drainage ditches and canals in the tsunami-affected area is important. Of course, all the ditches are full of mud, gravel, and debris from the inundation by tsunami.

One of All Hands' public service projects is to help clear the drainage system. The backhoes, bucket loaders, and grapples have been used to good effect to clear much of the affected area and to get bigger items such as cars, trucks, refrigerators, and houses out of the canals. But the detail work can't be done by machine. Gotta be done by hand (that's us).

Every morning the crew bus takes us down the hill from the Fukushinosato Center to Sakari base. We all join up with our teams, break out the wheelbarrows and tools from the tool storage, and board the buses for our work sites. (Note to Haiti vols: our tap-taps have heat, AC, individual reclining seats with padding, refrigerator, stereo, GPS, and cup holders.)

Half our crew work on the drainage ditches, which are about a foot wide and 10 inches deep. The other half, clad in Wellies and tyvek suits descend into the canals. These are about 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep. (Not a good job on rainy days.) We use pikes, shovels, hoes, and wheelbarrows to clear the filled ditches. The canal crew fill sandbags and buckets with the muck and debris and pass it up by hand to the waiting canal-side crew who wheel it to designated dumping spots.

It takes about 4 days to clear ditches around one city block. The canals take way longer.

Lunch is sent out to us and consists of generous bento boxes filled with a variety of tasty items, a different selection each day. (Note to Haiti vols: so far, we haven't had the same menu twice.) For the last couple days, we've been invited in to the local neighborhood center to eat at table and have hot soup, tea, and a siesta.

Here are some pictures. Sorry that they're all mixed up but Google's blogger software really sucks when it comes to arranging pictures.

All Hands Sakari Base

Canal Work

Break Time
Community Center: Our Lunch Spot
Canal Work
I-beam Shows Force of the Tsunami
Gathering the Tools

Waiting to Leave
Working the Canals

Lunch

Cars are Totally Mangled

Clearing Ditches

Planes, Trains, Automobiles (and Buses)

This was quite a marathon trip. We haven't done anything this complicated since Bangladesh.

We left home at 3:00am to take a taxi to the airport in Boston. After a short flight to NY, we left on American Airlines for a thirteen hour flight to Tokyo. Bused to the other terminal to find the cell phone rental company. Since we had booked the express train to Tokyo Station and missed the earlier departure, we waited a couple hours for the next train.

At Tokyo Station, we met up with old friend Junji Mitobe whom we hadn't seen in 25 years. We had dinner with him but were so tired that we totally forgot to take a picture.

We had reserved for an overnight express bus to the northern city of Morioka and had to wait in Tokyo Station sitting on our luggage (no apparent waiting rooms or benches there) for another three hours. We found where the bus stops (on a rainy street corner a few blocks from the station) and boarded. Unlike Haiti, where people ride in decommissioned US school buses, six people across, we had first-class seats that reclined and had privacy hoods so you could sleep. Quite luxurious.

At Morioka Station

Arrived in Morioka at 5:30 AM and found the stop for the local buses. Met another All Hands volunteer, Yaron from Israel/Miami). After another three hour wait, we started the final leg to Ofunato on the coast. After two days of traveling, we got off the bus a couple blocks from our base in the Sakari section of Ofunato and started walking in the wrong direction. Three people in a truck spotted three disoriented-looking gringos and got out to point the way for us.

A few minuted later we were being briefed by Jess UK, fed a nice lunch, and went off to the trenches (literally) to work. More rain.

Relaxing at Sakari Base

After work, we had dinner at Sakari base and got the All Hands shuttle bus to our living annex located a couple miles away at the Fukushinosato Center. Safely located up in the hills away from the tsunami zone, this is a modern rehab facility located in a civic complex.

Map of Civic Complex

Entrance to Fukushinosato Center

Out of consideration for the All Hands volunteers in Haiti who may be reading this, we will refrain at this time from describing the luxuries available there (Hint: hot tub and heated toilet seats.)

We commute each day to Sakari base and then to our project locations throughout the town of Ofunato and neighboring Rikuzentakata. You may have seen footage of these places on tv already.

Our Sleeping Quarters