JAPAN: Japanese boat captain who rode out the tsunami waves is reunited with his relatives and helps survivors stranded on a devastated island

Record ID: 179783

  • Title: JAPAN: Japanese boat captain who rode out the tsunami waves is reunited with his relatives and helps survivors stranded on a devastated island
  • Date: 26th March 2011
  • Summary: KESENNUMA CITY, MIYAGI PREFECTURE, JAPAN (MARCH 25, 2011) (REUTERS) DESTROYED DOWNTOWN PEOPLE IN RUBBLE PEOPLE LOADING THINGS INTO BOAT BOAT BEING PUSHED MORE OF BOAT BEING PUSHED AWAY FROM DOCK BOAT PULLING AWAY FROM DOCK BOAT SAILING AWAY WITH "HIMAWARI" WRITTEN IN JAPANESE ON BACK MORE OF BOAT SAILING AWAY PEOPLE INSIDE BOAT BELOW BOAT CAPTAIN SUSUMU SUGAWARA
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan, Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA5DNNKSEOUY46JO6LKUK71H1IA
  • Story Text: When Japan's massive quake and tsunami hit the northeast coast on March 11, Captain Susumu Sugawara was in the middle of the sea.
    He managed to ride out the wave and steer his boat back to land, coming back to a scene of devastation on his home island off the coast of Kesennuma city.
    Sugawara's house on the picturesque island of Ooshima, a small chunk of land a 30 minute boat ride from Kesennuma, was washed away in the tsunami.
    Aside from destroying buildings and houses, the tsunami also beached the two ferries that serviced the area, stranding the population of nearly 3,000 residents on the island.
    Sugawara's boat, the Himawari, has a normal load of 25 people, but the 69-year-old's first act on coming back was to start ferrying groups of 50 back and forth as well as carrying desperately needed supplies to Ooshima.
    His boat has played a big role transporting survivors and relief items to the cut-off community in the two weeks since the tsunami hit.
    "Whether people are happy or not, if I don't do this it's a problem for the people on the island. All the other boats that could do this are destroyed, so I thought in my head that I'd need to do this when I went over to the island. Since I managed to go over the tsunami when it was coming in, I can use my boat for this," Sugawara said.
    Many of Sugawara's passengers were heading to the island to visit stranded relatives.
    Sugawara's nephew and his wife were among those riding the ferry on Friday (March 25) to visit the Sugawaras, who they had not seen since last summer.
    "Although the house may be lost, if we put all our efforts into this I think we can rebuild again," Sugawara's nephew 43-year-old Kunimitsu Takahashi said after a tearful reunion with Captain Sugawara's wife Yoshiko.
    Yoshiko Sugawara said it was characteristic of her husband to repay the good fortune that they had received.
    "When the earthquake happened and I tried to go home, I found that I don't have a home anymore. My husband was out on the boat when it happened and I had already thought he was dead. But he was saved and now he's trying to save everyone else," 70-year-old Yoshiko Sugawara explained.
    Sugawara runs two round-trip rides to and from Ooshima, and says that he plans to keep doing so as long as necessary.
    Kesennuma, which envelops Ooshima, was home to around 74,000 before the tsunami swept through and destroyed the area. When the waters receded, fires consumed much of what remained.
    Such scenes of community spirit are replicated across quake-hit cities and towns, with residents pooling resources to provide relief for the survivors.
    The quake and tsunami, estimated to cost $300 billion in damages, has become the world's costliest natural disaster.
    Around 9,800 have been reported dead, while 17,500 are still missing. More than 245,000 people are in shelters around the country, many of which are short on food, clean water and heating fuel.
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