Richard Lloyd Parry, The School Beneath the Wave: the Unimaginable Tragedy of Japan's Tsunami. Daily Guardian, Aug 24, 2017 (under the heading "The Long Read").
https://www.theguardian.com/worl ... y-of-japans-tsunami
Note:
(a) "Okawa elementary school 大川小学校 was more than 200 miles north of Tokyo in a village called Kamaya 釜谷 [in fact, 釜谷 is not a village but 石巻市釜谷地区], which stands on the bank of a great river, the Kitakami 北上 [川], two miles inland of the point where it flows into the Pacific Ocean. * * * this region of Japan, known as Tōhoku 東北"
(b) "Lessons at Okawa elementary school finished at 2.30pm. At 2.45pm, the school bus was waiting in the car park with its engine running"
(c) "here was an obvious place of safety. The school was immediately in front of a forested hill, 220 metres high at its highest point. * * * Within five minutes – the time it had taken them to evacuate their classrooms – the entire school could have ascended * * * One senior teacher, Junji ENDŌ 遠藤 純二 教務主任[:] * * * 'To the hill! The hill! Run to the hill [裏山: literally the hill in the back of the school]!' * * * sixth-year teacher, Takashi SASAKI 教諭 佐々木 孝
(d) "Toshinobu OIKAWA [石巻市 河北総合支所 地域振興課 課長補佐, where the last means 'assistant/aide to 課長'] 及川 利信 – a grey-suited man in his late 50s who worked in the local branch of the Ishinomaki town [should be 'city'] government * * * received [a tsunami warning] from the Meteorological Agency 気象庁 * * * Oikawa and five of his colleagues were climbing into three cars mounted with rooftop speakers of their own, and setting out to deliver the warning in person. * * * Oikawa became aware of something extraordinary taking place two miles ahead of them, at the point where the sea met the land. The place was Matsubara 松原, the spit of fields and sand where a ribbon of pine forest [whose tallest trees are 20 meters high and yet tsunami overwhelmed the pines]
(e) "At 3.30pm, an elderly man named Kazuo TAKAHASHI 高橋 和夫 fled his home next to the river [by car for the hill behind the elementary school]. He too had ignored the warnings, until he became abruptly aware of the sea streaming over the embankment beside his house. It seemed to be coming from below the earth, as well as across it: metal manhole covers in the road were being lifted upwards by rising water; mud was oozing up between the cracks that the earthquake had opened in the road. * * * Takahashi parked his car next to the school. As he climbed out and made for the hill, he became aware of a large number of children issuing forth from the school in a hurry. Among them was Tetsuya TADANO 只野 哲也 [5年生/小5, age 11, whose father lived but paternal grandfather, mother (しろえ; not represented by kanji) and third-grade sister Mina 3年生で長女の未捺 died in the tsunami], who had remained in the playground with his class. Mr Ishizaka, the deputy head, was absent from the playground. He reappeared suddenly. 'A tsunami seems to be coming,” he called. “Quickly. We’re going to the traffic island. Get into line, and don’t run.' * * * Tetsuya's first thought was that he and his friend [Kohei TAKAHASHI, who had given him a hand] were already dead. He took the raging water to be the River of Three Crossings, the Japanese equivalent of the River Styx. * * * Only later would the full scale of the tragedy at Okawa elementary school become clear. The school had 108 children. Of the 78 who were there at the moment of the tsunami, 74 of them, and 10 out of the 11 teachers, had died. * * * Nowhere in Japan are precautions against natural disaster more robust than in state schools. On 11 March 2011, out of 18,000 people killed by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, only 75 were children in the care of their teachers. All but one were at Okawa elementary school."
(i)
(A) issue (vi) :
"1a : to go, come, or flow out
b: to come forth : EMERGE"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/issue
(B) issue (v): "(issue from) [no object] come, go, or flow out from <exotic smells issued from a nearby building>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/issue
(ii) The "traffic island" (Japanese: 三角地帯) is where 新北上大橋 [this Guardian article: New Kitakami Great Bridge] and 堤防道路 meet, whose elevation is merely 6m.
Maos can be viewed in
大川小学校事故検証報告書. 株式会社 社会安全研究所, Feb 26, 2014
http://www.e-riss.co.jp/oic/pg85.html
("報告書②・・・1.事故の概要、2.事故検証の経過.")
(iii) Sanzu River 三途の川
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanzu_River
(f) I will stop here, and go no further in the Guardian article (about a civil action in the Sendai court).
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