Tsunami-struck museum starts recovering collection (JAPAN)

Fumito Honda, former director of the Rikuzentakata City Museum, which was inundated by the March 11 tsunami, has come out of retirement to return as a volunteer and help coordinate efforts to recover the museum's collection. YOSHIAKI MIURA

Over 150,000 items scattered and damaged

By EDAN CORKILL
Staff writer

RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Pref. — A pile of small display cases lies in the dirt outside the Rikuzentakata City Museum. With their glass tops smashed into a thousand shards that reflect the sunlight through a layer of dried mud, it's difficult to make out the crushed wings of the small butterflies still pinned inside.


The museum's ruined second-floor exhibition space. YOSHIAKI MIURA

Over two months have passed since the March 11 tsunami that leveled most of this city and completely inundated its two-story museum. For the last six weeks, a small group of city staff, volunteers and Self-Defense Force personnel have been attending to the mammoth task of recovering what is left of a collection of cultural, botanical and zoological artifacts that once numbered over 150,000 pieces.


Self-Defense Forces personnel sort zoological samples recovered at the site. YOSHIAKI MIURA

"You should have seen it here when we arrived," said Koji Maeda, the head of the GSDF's 9th reconnaissance unit stationed in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture.

"Initially we were here for corpse-retrieval work, and it took several weeks just to clear enough debris so you could get close to the museum."

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In a disaster, we tend to first think of the lives of the people, their pets, and property damage to the homes and places of work..but sadly, when art and culture are lost..it truly takes away a small bit of the soul of the community.

Sadly, when the artifacts of the past are gone, people over time disbelieve they ever existed.