As well as being a decade since "911", today is also the half-year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. They even call it "311"! We got back from Ishinomaki yesterday. While there, and before my iPod broke, I read this blog post by Steve McCurry and, apart from the 311-911 thing, I was struck by a few other similarities and differences between the Al Quaeda attack on the USA and the tsunami attack on Ishinomaki.
Some similarities:
About 3000 people were killed in the attacks on the US, and about the same number in Ishinomaki.
Both events produced a huge amount of wreckage.
In terms of rebuilding, both events produce dithering among bureaucrats, and take many years to recover from.
Some differences:
According to the Japan Times, Ishinomaki lost 44,000 houses with another 34,000 damaged beyond repair, which is obviously far more than the USA.
The total number of casualties of the tsunami (~20,000) is possibly about 5 times less than those from the war on terror. Hopefully there won't be a war on tsunamis.
Steve McCurry's photos are infinitely better than mine.
Anyway, here are some 6 months later photos from Ishinomaki and nearby villages:
Ishinomaki
Nagatsura used to be some way from the coast but is now dramatically under water. It is going back to nature - there were a lot of egrets and herons around. It would have made for great photography but we only drove through.
Onosaki - near Nagatsura
Oginohama - where the shrine we deep cleaned is located.
House boat in Oginohama
Ishinomaki Warhol art? Is that whale or tuna on the tin?
The rise of the machines
Sunset over Ishinomaki
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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 9/11/2011 05:42:00 PM
7 comments:
That half-visible kanji appears to be kujira: 鯨
In fact the whole phrase is 鯨大和煮, boiled yamato whale, eg
http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/zizake/item/126423/
Are you counting civilian Iraqi casualties in your war on terror sums?
Well I only said "possibly" - it could be much more -
eg. http://www.unknownnews.org/casualties.html
The point I wanted to make is that it is clearly much more.
It is both futile and silly to compare disasters, but one thing to keep in mind with 9-11 is that lower Manhattan, an area of considerable density with housing as well as offices was a no go area for quite some time due to the dust and rubble from the WTC collapse.
> It is both futile and silly to compare disasters
I don't see why. It is well known that we humans have a difficult time comprehending huge events. We will respond to a single photo of a hungry child, but hardly at all to the news that thousands are starving. Personally I find comparing these things quite a helpful way of getting my head round them. Even having visited Ishinomaki for 2 weeks it is still really hard to comprehend what happened, but the knowledge that the death toll was similar there and New York, certainly helps me comprehend that earlier event a little more.
Yamato-ni (大和煮) is simmering with thick sauce consisting of soy sauce, sugar and ginger. As written in the article 大和煮 in Japanese Wikipedia, this way of cooking was invented in early modern times. Many kinds of meat is used, first (in 1877) chicken, and primarily beef. Canned beef yamato-ni became popular as Army food. And, (again as Wikipedia says) Yamato-ni of sperm whales used to be local speciality of Oshika area of Ishinomaki.
Thanks, I was wondering if "Yamato" was a species....it sounds like the tin we shared with dinner one night, the meat itself seemed rather overcooked and dry, but had a rich taste.
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