AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Onagawa Monument of Life at Miyagasaki is one of 21 stone memorials erected by students who were children when the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami devastated this coastal town. Standing on the grounds of Yamazumi Shrine at an elevation deliberately chosen above the tsunami's reach, this particular monument bears the haiku inscription: "ただいまと 聞きたい声が 聞こえない" — "The voice I long to hear say 'I'm home' — I cannot hear it." It was dedicated in March 2014.↗↗↗
A Message Written in Stone for a Thousand Years
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Pacific coast generated a tsunami that struck Onagawa with devastating force. The waves reached 14.8 meters in height (with a maximum inundation height of 18.5 m and a run-up of 34.7 m), sweeping away homes, harbor infrastructure, and lives across the town's many small coves and beaches. Children who had just been elementary-school sixth-graders entered middle school in the weeks after the disaster, and from those first months at Onagawa First Middle School they began organizing what they called the "Monument of Life Project."↗
