Ishinomaki

In the Autumn holiday Shibi and me went up to Ishinomaki, an area hit the eartquake and tsunami in March, to do some volunteering. We joined an organisation called It's Not Just Mud. http://itsnotjustmud.com/ Someone from this group met us as the station and drove us to where the group was staying. In the area around the station the only sign that something so bad had happened were lines on buildings left from the tsunami water. However, as we turned down another street to head towards where we were going to be staying more and more houses and shops were patched up with boards. About 2 minutes into the journey though, and we could really see the damage. There were areas where maybe only one house would be standing (or half standing) with all of its neighbours left in rubble or completely cleared away by volunteers. There must have been miles and miles of neighbourhoods like this one. All along the coast there were miles of piles of waste and rubble that had already been cleared. It was shocking to see just how big of an area had been affected and how seriously, and this was only one of the towns that had been hit.

A school, that although it was still standing, all the rooms were left in ruins

This giant red tin had apparently fallen off the top of a factory nearby and been carried to here by the tsunami