Near the town center of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, a damaged building lies toppled over on its side. It is the former Onagawa Police Box, a silent relic of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Next Wednesday will mark nine years since the catastrophic disaster occurred on March 11, 2011. Reconstruction work is still going on in the tsunami-devastated town. In the center of the town, the railway station has been rebuilt and a shopping facility called Seapal-Pier Onagawa has been constructed.
The ruined police box has been left as it fell as proof of "townspeople who never gave up and confronted difficulties."
The Olympic torch relay will pass between the shopping facility and the police box on June 20. Shinya Suda, 42, a fisherman who rebuilt his house on a man-made hill, said, "I want many people to see what the city is like today through the torch relay."
The Olympic flame will arrive from Greece on March 20 -- nine days after the disaster's anniversary -- at the Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima base in Miyagi Prefecture, before the relay starts at the J-Village soccer training facility in Fukushima Prefecture on March 26. The torch will pass various locations related to the disaster in the Tohoku region.
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