*English translation is below.
私の診療所は、亘理町荒浜の海から1キロ程離れた場所に位置しています。今回の震災で周囲の家はほとんど流され、私の所も全壊判定を受けました。建物は残りましたが、１階が診療所で２階近くに達した濁流が窓ガラスを割って入り、治療ユニットや治療器具等は、すべて使用不能となりました。裏の駐車場も瓦礫の山で、流出して来た家の２階部分、２隻の船、３台の車などもありました。
地震当時は、診療をしていましたが、10メートルの津波が来るという警報が入り、驚いてすぐ患者さんやスタッフを帰すことにしました。私も２階の自宅が、どうなったか気になり、すぐに上がって後片付けをしていましたが、津波に気が付いた時は、すぐ裏にある中学校に避難する時間はありませんでした。やがて、避難のために校庭に駐車しつつあった車の列から多数の悲鳴が聞こえましたので、窓から振り向くと高さが５メートル位もある津波が、校庭を越えて一気に私の診療所へ迫ってくるのが、見えました。このため、私も自宅にて決死の覚悟をしました。
幸い、柱を鉄骨で建てていたことと大きな漂流物の直撃を避けられたためか、本当に奇跡的に難を逃れました。しかし、窓から見た光景は、まるでパニック映画のようで返って現実感が無かったですね。
まさに九死に一生を得ましたが、水がなかなか引かず、自宅で一夜を明かしました。翌日、駐車場に乗り上げた漁船の船員の方が、救命用ゴムボートを出され、それに乗せていただき、中学校の３階に避難しました。中学校も２階までは、津波の痕跡があり、ひどい状態で、電気は切れ、食料や水もほとんど無く、翌日(13日)、自衛隊のヘリコプターにて岩沼市へ脱出しました。多くの避難者は、立地条件の良い別の避難所に移りましたが、犬も連れていた私は、そこから２５キロ程家族と一緒に歩いて、なんとか娘のいる仙台のマンションに辿り着きました。
今回の震災では、幸い、家族やスタッフは、すべて無事でした。まさに生かされたといった状況なので、私には被災された地域の人々のために尽くしたいといった気持ちが、自然に湧いてまいります。地域全体のライフラインが、破壊されており、復興には、まだ、幾多の困難と時間がかかりそうですが、きっと乗り越えられるでしょう。
The town of Watari. Dentist Uehara Shinobu’s experience of the disaster
My clinic is situated at a distance of about a kilometer from the Arahama sea at Watari. In this disaster, nearly all the surrounding houses were swept away, and my place, too, was entirely destroyed. The house is still standing; however my clinic was on the ground floor, and the floods, which reached almost to the next floor, shattered the windows and swept inside. The treatment area and instruments became unusable. The parking lot in the back became a mountain of rubble; among other things in that rubble there were broken-up floors of houses, two boats, three cars.
At the time of the earthquake, I was treating a patient, but then we received a warning of a ten meter-high tsunami. Shocked, I immediately let the patients and staff go home. I was worried what might have happened to the upper floors of my house, and began to finish up. When I became aware of the tsunami there was no more time to take refuge in the junior high school which was directly behind the building. I could hear screaming from the people parking their cars at the school for shelter, and when I turned to look there was a tsunami wave at least five meters high, passing over the school yard and at once coming at my clinic. I resigned myself to dying here.
By some stroke of luck, perhaps because the frames of the house were made of steel, and because it wasn’t struck directly by any large flotsam, we survived, like a miracle. But the scenery I could see from the window look exactly like something out of a disaster movie, and nothing felt real.
I may have had a narrow escape from death, but the water didn’t recede, and I spent the night there. The next day the boatsmen of a fishing boat which had settled on the parking lot sent out an emergency rubber boat. They brought me on board and to shelter, on the second floor of the school. The junior high school’s ground floor and first floor were covered in traces of the tsunami and in terrible condition; the electricity was out, there was almost no food or water. The next day (March 13th) a Self Defense Forces helicopter flew us out to Iwanuma city. Many refugees moved to a well-situated shelter, but my family, my dog and I walked twenty-five kilometers, and managed to arrive at our daughter’s house in Sendai.
Thankfully, my family and staff were all unhurt in this disaster. This gave me new energy, and a sense of wanting to do everything in my power for the people in the area who had suffered, rose naturally. All the utilities in the area have been destroyed and although I expect we will still face numerous difficulties and take much time for rebuilding, we will get through this.
