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Part 4: School (2) Keeping Students at School / Going Against Safety Protocol to Protect Lives

Instead of sending students home, Koharagi Elementary School had the children and guardians wait in their cars parked at the schoolyard (Color illustration: Michino Kuriki)
Photo03

The emergency protocol at schools in the event of an earthquake, fire, or intruder is to send students home. This ended up being a pitfall that caused casualties among the children during the Great East Japan Earthquake, when a major tsunami hit coastal areas. However, there is one district that protected the lives of the children by keeping them at school.

Koharagi Elementary School is located on the elevated grounds of Kesennuma City, overlooking Hirota Bay. After the main shock, the residing principal, Yoko Kumagai (62), waited with 67 children at the schoolyard until their families could pick them up.

When a huge tremor shook, the children hid under their desks and protected their bodies from falling debris. They then relocated to the schoolyard without confusion.

"Principal, we're in trouble. The wall has fallen and there are major fissures in the ground.”

Kumagai was seized with anxiety after hearing this from a parent who rushed in. It felt as if the earthquake had split the whole earth in half. There was no reason to believe that the roads were fine, and a tsunami could be closing in.

Growing up in Kesennuma City and having experienced the Chile Earthquake Tsunami of 1960, Kumagai knew how dangerous tsunamis could be. The school was located 400 meters from the ocean, 44.7 meters above sea level. In contrast, the children's houses were scattered along the coast at the bottom of the hill. After consulting with the vice principal, Kumagai announced to the parents, "This is an elevated area, so let's wait here and see."

Around 25 guardians were gathered in the schoolyard. There were no objections to this suggestion. After every aftershock, an uneasy look passed over everyone’s faces. The children were packed into the parents' cars parked at the schoolyard, in order to protect them from the cold.

30 minutes later, a huge tsunami hit the village in the school district. Part-time worker Noriko Ito (38) lost her house to the tsunami, but evaded danger with her eldest son, then in first grade, by remaining at school. "If he had been released from school, we would have gone home. We were saved by the school," Ito expressed her gratitude.

In Kesennuma City, many elementary and junior high schools are located in elevated areas. 12 schools, including Nakai Elementary and Karakuwa Junior High School, made independent decisions to keep the children at school until their safety could be secured.

Another school, located on low-lying ground, also decided to keep students from returning home. Located in the central part of the city, Minami Kesennuma Elementary (consolidated with Kesennuma Elementary) lies one kilometer from the ocean. It stands adjacent to Okawa, a river flowing through the city, in an area known to have a high risk of tsunami damage.

It happened just after the first and second graders finished their final homeroom period, and were sent home by their teachers. A violent tremor shook the school.

"We’re bringing the kids back." The faculty and staff rushed out of the building, ran along the school routes to find the students, and called for them to return to the school.

40 minutes later, after most of the first and second graders reached the school, muddy streams began to fill the area. They flooded into the school building, up to the ceiling of the first floor. The 350 students who escaped to the upper floors were safe. Sadly, one girl lost her life after being dismissed to go home, before the school recognized the major tsunami warning on the municipal emergency broadcast.

The principal at the time, Mitsuo Nakai (59), stated, "As there are no elevated areas or tall buildings nearby, we had previously decided to evacuate above the first floor when a tsunami is expected.”

In Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures, 351 elementary and junior high school students, as well as children in special needs schools, lost their lives. According to an investigation by Kahoku Shimpo, a third of these victims, 120 students, had been released from school.

In Kesennuma City, 12 elementary and junior high school students passed away. All of these students lost their lives outside of school, after leaving early or being released to go home. The survival rate of the children in the city was 99.8%. This is comparable to the “miracle” of Kamaishi City, where almost all of the elementary and junior high school students evacuated successfully.

◎The spreading practice of keeping students at school / "Tendenko" for both parents and children

Learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake, a movement is spreading among educators to generally forbid schools from sending students home while a tsunami warning or advisory is in effect. In addition, new evacuation rules are being developed for schools and households.

On February 6, 2013, at 2:41 p.m., an earthquake in the Solomon Islands triggered a tsunami advisory for the Pacific coast of Japan. Daiichi Junior High School (275 students) in Rikuzentakata City kept their students at school until the advisory was lifted at 10:45 p.m.

The school stands on high ground, 36 meters above sea level, and many of the students must go down through tsunami inundation zones to return home. The seawall in the school district remains broken from the 2011 earthquake. Some of the parents wanted their children released from school, but the school persuaded them otherwise.

There are two reasons why the school did not release the students.

On December 7, 2012, a tsunami advisory was issued for the coast of Iwate Prefecture during the Earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sanriku, and the school sent some students home. Parents opposed to this, saying, "The school is in a safe area, so we would rather keep them there."
 
The second reason was that releasing the students during an approaching tsunami could put parents in danger as well. Principal Yasunobu Sasaki (59) stated, "If students are kept at school, their guardians may evacuate without worry, and both parties could be saved. We will continue implementing our policy to keep students at school.”

In Rikuzentakata City, approximately 1,800 people died in the earthquake, of which 19 were elementary and junior high school students. At Daiichi Junior High School, three students who had been absent that day lost their lives.

After the earthquake, the Iwate Prefecture Board of Education revised the student dismissal rules to 1) Students will not be dismissed under tsunami warnings, and 2) Schools will decide according to situation for tsunami advisories. The Rikuzentakata City Board of Education also asked elementary and junior high schools in the city to follow the revised rules, resulting in more than 600 students waiting at school by the time the tsunami advisory was lifted on February 6. There were even schools like Kesen Junior High School (94 students), which kept the students overnight.

There are local governments revising their tsunami evacuation rules, including guidelines for parents and guardians. The Kamaishi City Board of Education notified each school to clearly indicate in their disaster manuals, “Guardians should evacuate immediately and avoid picking up their children at school.” This rule will be implemented for anything above a tsunami advisory.

In Kamaishi City, 2,921 elementary and junior high school students safely evacuated during the 2011 earthquake. On the other hand, the city lost more than 1,000 residents. This included parents who stayed home, waiting to hear from the schools.

A disaster management staff for the Kamaishi City Board of Education emphasized, "As part of our disaster prevention education, we consistently tell children to run to higher ground after an earthquake. We are encouraging parents to have this mindset as well, which will lead to the realization of ‘Tendenko,’ in which each person escapes to the nearest high ground.”

【Photo03】Rikuzentakata City Daiichi Junior High School, located on high ground (image left). The school overlooks surrounding neighborhoods, which suffered tremendous casualties from the tsunami. Temporary housing now lines the areas to the right of the school.

Translated by Aurora Tsai
March 29, 2013 (Fri.)

[Japanese] http://www.kahoku.co.jp/special/spe1114/20130329_01.html

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