Over Christmas break, Master’s student Takehiro Kawahara visited his hometown Kamaishi in Northeastern Japan. Next time he sees it, nothing will be the same. The port town was severely damaged by the tsunami. After that he didn’t hear anything from his parents for almost a week.
It was his teacher who first told him about the earthquake, just before he was going to give a presentation.
– I checked the internet and saw that the size of the tsunami wave in my town was 4.2 meters, which I realized was very dangerous. It took a while to calm down. I tried to call my parents but the phone tower had collapsed, he says.
He still managed to complete the presentation, but since then it has been difficult for him to study.
– I can’t concentrate. Most of the time, I’m just checking information on the internet, he says.
He later found out that the tsunami that swept in over Kamaishi was as high as ten meters.
His house was spared
Takehiro Kawahara came to Lund last fall to do a Master’s program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science.
– I like the nature and ocean. My town is on the countryside, he says.
His hometown Kamaishi, with a population of 40 000, is nestled between mountains and the sea, but now there is little left of it.
After the tsunami, he was able to see satellite pictures of it on the internet. On the computer he shows pictures of downtown, where it is now impossible to make out the shoreline because both water and land are covered in debris.
But the pictures also gave him some hope.
On the satellite images he could see that his parents’ house, which is a bit higher up on land, was still standing.
And after almost a week’s worrying, without knowing if his parents had survived, on Tuesday he finally managed to contact a neighbor from Kamaishi who told him that his parents are alive and well.
– I was very relieved and slept for five hours, he says.
But he won’t feel entirely calm until he manages to contact them himself.
His duty to tell
When people gathered on Stortorget to light candles in support for Japan on Monday, Takehiro Kawahara told about what had happened to his city in front of one hundred people. It was not something he had planned to do but he felt compelled to do it. He doesn’t know of any other Japanese people in Lund that are from the tsunami stricken area.
– It’s my role to tell. I cannot do much, but I can tell people. Often when something happens in a faraway country, in the beginning people worry, but after a while they forget. We need support and volunteers to help with reconstruction. This takes a long time, years. I want people to remember, not only for one month, he says.
But he also thinks it’s important that people cooperate and help each other in times of disaster. Sharing what has happened with other people gives him some relief.
– I have never been in this state before. It’s hard to breathe, but when I talk to people about it I calm down, he says.
Plans to go home
His plan is to return to Japan as soon as it is possible to get to Kamaishi.
– Once transportation works, I will go and see my parents, neighbors and friends and discuss plans to reconstruct my home area. But of course I will come back here to finish my degree, he says, and still looks ahead optimistically.
– I hope in the future that people will visit my region when it is rebuilt, he says.
