The day began nearly as yesterday ended – with a low rumble followed 9 seconds later by slightly sharper swaying. Another aftershock. The day was focused on the people caught up in the tsunami and the decisions they made that contributed to their surviving. We started back at the Sendai Airport, this time going inside to talk with the people who had been there on March 11. Although in a mapped tsunami inundation zone, the water height was never expected to flood into the main part of the terminal. On March 11 there were about 600 employees at the airport and about a similar number of passengers. The earthquake caused the power to go out but the generators (located underground) immediately came on. There was a lot of confusion – some people rushed outside during and after the ground shaking, some people were told to go up to the second or third floor and others told to go downstairs. The airport is not a designated tsunami evacuation shelter but many people from the community sought it out because of its modern design and high profile. Security personnel and some of the passengers and staff received the tsunami forecasts by JMA, the Japanese Meteorological Agency that warned of significant wave heights. Nearly 1300 people ended up squeezing onto the second and third floors (with broken glass and other earthquake damage) when the tsunami advanced on the airport (see the link day 2). The generators died at 4 PM, about 1 hour 15 minutes after the earthquake and marks the likely time of complete inundation. Many people outside and on the ground floor were caught in the waves and perished. Those high enough endured 2 difficult days of cold, inadequate food, water and sanitation. On the third day, only passengers and elderly neighborhood evacuees were provided helicopter airlifts and staff had to walk across the inundated area to get out of the zone.

Next stop the Natori City Cultural Hall, which serves as the shelter for the survivors who have lost their homes in an area northeast of the airport called Yuriage. Very discouraging place with over 300 people separated into cubicles with 4 foot cardboard packing boxes, sleeping on the floor with their few belongings around them. Many have been living this way for over 6 weeks. We spent the afternoon interviewing willing evacuees to get a sense of the factors that triggered them to evacuate, how they evacuated and what made them think an area was safe. Several themes emerged from their responses. There was more time between feeling the earthquake and the tsunami flooding than I had been led to believe. A series of timed photographs made from the roof on an elementary school that served as an evacuation site clear shows the first flooding just before 4 PM, the same time the airport was hit. Almost no one said they began to evacuate after feeling the earthquake. Many headed from safe areas back into the hazard area to contact relatives. The decision to evacuate in most cases came after hearing the JMA tsunami warning of significant waves. And almost everyone evacuated by car. Of course we didn’t get to interview those who failed to successfully evacuate.

Tonight we are staying at a mountain hotel in the hills behind Iwanuma. It only just reopened because of earthquake damage and persistent power outages. It does have a hot springs, which I am about to partake of.