This also happened at Osabe: Mr. Osaka, who is running the refugee center at Osabe, wanted to show us a video he took of the tsunami with his camera. He had fled partway up the hill, and was looking down on the village (pictured in the photo). He filmed the scene as water swelled over the sea wall and flooded the village, but as the water climbed higher and higher he dropped his camera in surprise. For about 20 seconds, the camera filmed the winter sky, then he hastily re-focused on the scene. In the video, water creeps higher and higher as voices of alarm and consternation rise from the crowd. Mr. Osaka kept urging us to look at the Fisherman's Guild, a four-storey building on the ocean front. Water rapidly climbs up the side of the building, reaching the middle of the fourth floor before slowly (but only temporarily) receding.
Although it was drizzling, he took us on a walk down into the town to see what was left-- almost nothing. Only a couple of blocks from the water wall (which the tsunami cleared by fifteen meters) was Mr. Osaka's house. He carefully showed us his garden ("My bonsai collection was over there"), his living room (he hasn't found a single one of his possessions) and the back entrance. Standing on a flat boulder that used to be the doorstep, he pointed out the scenic view. The view remained, but the home to view it from was gone.
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