SAKANAMACHI, Japan—Sakanamachi, once a long line of small sea-facing factories and warehouses, is now a mangled pile of steel, boats, nets and rotting fish.
Eric Bellman/The Wall Street Journal
There's a lane of crooked old pine trees that survived the wave but are now filled with everything from plastic boxes to fishing buoys to a small car.
The first waves of Friday's tsunami swept away hundreds of cars full of people trying to flee and destroyed thousands of homes. They also chewed up and spit out the buildings of the area's main industries, fishing and shipbuilding, leaving most beyond recognition and beyond repair.
As fat, wet snowflakes started to fall on Tuesday, one of the few sounds in the area was the cackling of crows converging on Sakanamachi (which means Fish Town) to feast on the thousands of fish spread along miles of its muddy streets. Freezing temperatures helped quell the rising stench of rotting tuna, squid, bonito and bream, but some of the few remaining residents said it was starting to get unbearable.
The devastation in Sakanamachi, a neighborhood of the city of Ishinomaki, offers a window into the broader problems Japan will face in rebuilding. Though the economic impact of suspended production at big outfits like Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. gets the bulk of attention, much of the destruction was borne by smaller businesses, including the fish processors that dominated this community. While they're not the country's greatest concern today, in the long run the government will be judged on whether it can help these companies bounce back.
Analysts at Barclays Capital say the towns and cities damaged by the earthquake and tsunami account for about 6% to 7% of the overall Japanese economy and about 7% of its businesses. An early estimate by National Australia Bank puts the total damage cost as high as $200 billion—compared with only about $10 billion in economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people across 13 countries.
Back in the area for the first time since the tsunami, Yoshi Kameya, 43, stood next to his cherry-red station wagon and stared down what used to be the road to his office at a frozenfood maker. It is now a lumpy lane of industrial rubble, seemingly stretching to the horizon.
The 30 employees in his office, knowing a tsunami was likely to follow such a massive earthquake, all left to move inland immediately after the shaking stopped. Their cars joined hundreds of others from the factories of small and medium sized companies that are the main employers here, all headed for the same tunnel about a mile from shore. Traffic just stopped. Mr. Kameyama tried to find his way around, but when he realized he wouldn't make it in time he drove up a hill and pulled his car into a parking lot there. The elevation saved him and gave him a front-row seat to the churning carnage below.
"When the first wave hit, it lifted all the cars up and dragged them out," he said, before pulling out his iPhone to take photos of the sludge, stones and lumber the waves left as they retreated. "The waves kept coming until there were no more cars."
It took two days for the water to recede enough to allow Mr. Kameya to drive out again; he lived off food stolen from a nearby convenience store.
Of the 30 employees, five have not been heard from since.
Halfway between the industry row and the tunnel is the home of Sadayuki Abe, 32. He sleeps in a small upstairs room with his nephew, niece and sister because the space downstairs is now filled with a massive refrigerated truck that floated in, shearing off much of the front of the house as it tipped onto his tatami. Having run home from his job at a shipbuilding company after the earthquake hit, Mr. Abe watched from his balcony as the truck approached.
He gets drinking water from the bags of ice used to preserve fish, and he's struggling to feed his family. The fish in the nearby waters are inedible, he says, because they have been exposed to gasoline and oil. Tuesday he tried to make rice, but the wood fire didn't generate enough heat to boil the water.
The factory that employed Mr. Abe has been destroyed and he doubts it can be rebuilt, but he hasn't thought about that much.
"I'm not thinking about the future yet," he said. "I am just trying to survive right now."
Nearby is a lane of crooked old pine trees that survived the wave but are now filled with everything from plastic boxes to fishing buoys to a small car.
Heading home with his girlfriend, carrying bags of groceries—soft drinks and snacks, all they could find at the last functioning store in the area—Hokuto Suzuka, 21, said the shipbuilding factory where he works was also destroyed. The big container carrier being built was washed out to sea, along with the 100 workers on it at the time.
"I don't know whether we can rebuild," he said. "Without government help it will be impossible."
Back at Mr. Kameya's car, some colleagues who had made the long trek to their former office returned, emerging from the rubble shaking their heads. They had found no evidence that the five missing employees were alive.
"This has taught me to feel happy to be alive," said Mr. Kameya, whose family all survived the disaster. He looked toward a big fishing boat balanced on the manmade sea wall that was supposed to protect the harbor. "It has also taught me that life is painful."
©online.wsj.com
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