In the bottom right hand corner of a YouTube video, you can see an old man pushing his bike. He's walking slowly, but you can hear people on the roof shouting at him, "Hurry old man, hurry up, run, run, run." Further down the alley, there is a white van reversing fast; on the bridge behind, two cars driving, hazard lights flashing. I doubt they survived. The people on the roof can see the Tsunami churning the river, waves of black water, throwing fishing boats against the bridge piles, pouring over the flood wall, and later the camera follows a half-submerged van, hazard lights still ablaze, as it washes out to sea.

We spent New Year in Ishinomaki, where those shots were taken, in the northern part of Miyagi prefecture, with a volunteer group called “It’s not just mud.” One of the volunteers, Toshi, grew up in the town and took us on a tour, past the shell of the store where he worked as a teenager, the shuttered shops in the central district, and the empty lots surrounding the paper mill. We stood on the hill above the port by his old school and looked down at the few remaining buildings, an empty wrecked hospital, some storage tanks, ten or so apartment blocks. The remainder, little houses and alleys, machine shops and small businesses are swept away and destroyed. Toshi said about 4,000 people died in his district, one in forty of the town; the official figures say 6,500 dead, out of 160,000, about 30,000 homes destroyed or seriously damaged. The unofficial figures reckon far more.

Compared to the scenes immediately after the earthquake, much of the muck, mud and debris have been cleared. Huge dumps of wrecked cars, building materials, and wreckage are stored along the front. The roads are passable again, although drivers must weave between the manhole covers that are now six inches above road level; most of the suburbs have power, water, and sewage. And the paper mill and chemical plant reopened two months ago, a waft of sulfur giving a sniff of economic recovery. But the industrial area, once busy with hurrying trucks and the noise of machinery is empty, silent wasteland. This province had a GDP greater than all Argentina before last March; it will be years before jobs and income return to pre March levels, if ever.
But there’s a deeper malaise behind the superficial clearance. We worked in a community centre where the tide mark from the Tsunami is 2.3 meters, the waters soaked the ground floor for over a week. Even two miles inland, the water reached chest height. That means that every house was flooded, drenching the plaster, insulation, timber framing, kitchen cupboards, pots, pans, bedding, appliances, books, and albums with a toxic mix of Tsunami silt and chemical waste washed in from the port.

Nine months after the disaster, few houses have been restored and the survivors camp above rotting rooms. In the immediate aftermath, whole areas were condemned and scheduled for demolition so owners abandoned their homes to the rats and kites and moved away. Now, it seems those decisions have been overturned, and the owners are trickling back. Where else can people go in this crowded little island? And although it is hard to know (we don’t speak Japanese) it seems to me that there is little project planning, overall direction, or leadership at either national, regional, or city level. Tohuku rarely features on national TV – Fukushima, Olympus and political shenanigans dominate. The locals say the Mayor has been on holiday since March 11 – he has never visited one of the worst damaged suburbs, Watanoha (where we stayed). Rumours say the Yakuza have moved into the construction industry, raising prices and demanding protection money from the tradesmen.
And so the small volunteer groups do the best they can, working with local communities, clearing ditches, preparing houses for restoration by removing rotting plaster and timber, cooking New Year meals, and bagging tsunami debris for removal.

We stayed a week (facebook.com/ItsNotJustMud). INJM uses two semi derelict houses as a base, with ten to thirty volunteers sleeping on the floor, sharing the chores, leaving to work in the morning, and returning each afternoon to cook nabe pots of miso soup and stews. There is power to one house and cold water to both, but baths mean a trip to the local onsen, which is very welcome as the sleeping quarters are ice boxes.
We spent our first two days collecting debris from a house section and the beach, the second two cleaning ditches, and the third two cleaning photographs and documents in the Nakajima community centre. Other volunteers came from Japan, Europe, Asia, Australia and NZ. It doesn’t seem appropriate, but we had fun clearing ditches, shoveling silt, and enjoying the friendship of a lovely group of people, despite the sadness and anger, and the choking need to weep from time to time, as when we found a little kokeshi doll (shrine to a dead child) in the rubble surrounded by fresh flowers. We are twice the age of some of the other volunteers, but felt quite comfortable and accepted (unlike another organization that turned me down a couple of months ago on the grounds I was too old ... ha).
It will take several years, the government reckons three, most outside groups guess ten or more, so there will be masses of work for INJM and others for some time yet. If any of you can donate, then check out the “itsnotjustmud.com” site; they have a list of needs there.
Love to you all
Nigel and Linda