A search continues


  • Photographer
    Yuki Iwanami
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Freelance

More than 2 years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Masaru Naganuma, 43, is still searching for his sun, Koto, everyday using power shovel. Koto, who was a second-year student at Okawa Primary School at the time of the disaster, is one of four students from the school who remain unaccounted for. Seventy schoolchildren at the public school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, have been confirmed dead due to the disaster. Miho Suzuki, 44, also is searching for her daughter, Hana, who is one of the four. with Naganuma and few other parents cooperates.

Story

ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi, Japan--As the sun set, Masaru Naganuma, 43, poked a stick into the brown earth to signal his search had ended for the day, here in the Nagatsura district located on the south bank at the mouth of the Kitakamigawa river.
Naganuma took out his cell phone. On the screen was an image of his eldest son, Koto, smiling aboard a ship.
"Your father will definitely find you, all right?" Naganuma made a fresh promise.

More than 2 years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, even now, Masaru Naganuma is still searching for his sun, Koto, everyday using power shovel. Koto, who was a second-year student at Okawa Primary School at the time of the disaster, is one of four students from the school who remain unaccounted for. Seventy schoolchildren at the public school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, have been confirmed dead due to the disaster.
Miho Suzuki, 44, also is searching for her daughter, Hana, who is one of the four. Suzuki is walking around this area to find Hana with Naganuma and few other parents cooperates.
Naganuma, then a truck driver, was about 30 kilometers from the school when the disaster hit. It took him two days to reach the school. He found Koto's school bag and indoor shoes, but not Koto himself.From that day forward, he did virtually nothing but search for his son. He quit his job at a transport company and spent every day combing the coast and devastated areas nearby.
And now, the Nagatsura district, which had become a quagmire due to ground subsidence, is one of the few areas Naganuma has left to search. Thanks to drainage work, the situation has improved and about a month ago heavy machinery began operating in the area.Naganuma recently took a job at a civil engineering company that undertakes search operations for the city government. In sediment and rubble, his search for Koto continues.The city government expects current search operations in the drained area to be completed in March. Naganuma wonders what he will do if he doesn't find his son by then. He thinks about continuing the search on his own, but cannot afford it. He cannot think about anything beyond that.

On the morning of the day before the disaster, Koto kept waving in front of the family home, Naganuma said. "Hurry up, or you'll be late for school!" he told his son."I should have held him tightly at that time," he laments, then heads to Nagatsura once again.

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