Tearful students sing at the first graduation ceremony at a new municipal school in the Yuriage district of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, on Friday. About 800 people died or went missing in the district in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The Yuriage elementary school and junior high school, which had been seriously damaged, were combined and the new Yuriage Compulsory Education School opened last April at a new site about 2 kilometers from the coast.
"Please pass down the importance of life," school principal Noboru Hachimori said.
Hina Nanbu, 15, said on behalf of the 18 graduates: "We were able to have studied in our hometown for our last year [of compulsory education]. We want to walk our own path with confidence."
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