Namie Town (浪江町) is in the center of the Hama-dori region next to Futaba and Okuma Towns where the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is located as near as 4 km away. Namie was one of the worst hit by the triple disaster, especially the nuclear disaster with the plume blown over the town.
Contents
- Ukedo Elementary School
- Namie Town Great East Japan Disaster Memorial monument
- Michinoeki Namie roadside station
On March 11, 2011 at 3:33 pm, tsunami waves as high as 15 meters hit Namie and destroyed 586 homes along the coast (plus 65 homes destroyed by the earthquake). The tsunami claimed 182 people in Namie with 31 people still missing.
The leaking nuclear power plant soon forced all 21,000 Namie residents within 20 km from the Daiichi plant to evacuate. People within the 20 km to 30 km radius from the Daiichi plant were ordered to shelter in place. A month later, people even in western Namie (25 km from Daiichi) were ordered to evacuate.
The town hall and many residents first evacuated to Nihonmatsu city further west of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture. At one time, Namie became a ghost town wth zero population.
On March 31, 2017, evacuation orders were lifted in parts of Namie where the decontamination and infrastructure reconstruction were completed and evacuees were allowed to return. On the next day, the town hall returned to Namie and JR Namie Station also reopened.
Train service on the entire JR Joban Line was finally restored on March 14, 2020 when the last out-of-service segment between Tomioka Station and Namie Station was repaired.
On March 31, 2023, evacuation orders were lifted in more parts of Namie. New public housing, medical clinic, shops, and schools were built.
However, the current population of 2,256 (as of January 2025) is still way below the pre-disaster population of 21,542, and most former residents are still evacuees living in Fukushima Prefecture.
A survey taken in 2024 indicated that about half of the responding evacuees from Namie did not plan to return to live in Namie. And about 24 percent were still unsure about returning. They were unsure mainly due to the uncertainty of accessible medical and shopping facilities and assistance to rebuild homes.
Ukedo Elementary School, Namie
Ukedo Elementary School (請戸小学校) in Namie’s coastal area of Ukedo is the setting of a harrowing, but heartwarming evacuation story. All the school’s teachers and students evacuated in time and survived. The school is now Fukushima Prefecture’s sole disaster heritage site (震災遺構) open to the public. You can enter the school building and see the earthquake and tsunami damage inside.
Being only 300 meters from the ocean, Ukedo Elementary School suffered major tsunami damage less than an hour after the 3.11 earthquake. The school was in the middle of seawater and floating debris.
Established in 1873, the school was a longtime landmark in Ukedo, a small rural community. In 2011, the school only had about ten students in each grade from 1st to 6th grades. Since the school buildings were last rebuilt in ferroconcrete in March 1998, it was sturdy enough to not get washed away.
The school’s evacuation story has become famous for a string of good judgment and lucky turn of events.
Ukedo Elementary School’s evacuation and survival story
On March 9, 2011, two days before the 3.11 tsunami, there were a few foreshocks when the kids routinely hid under their desks in school. So when it shook again on March 11 at 2:46 pm, they all knew the drill and thought, “Not again!” as they again took cover.
However, this time, it shook for the longest time and their desks also jerked around with the shaking. The fifth graders were in the gym making preparations for the 6th grade graduation ceremony planned for March 23. All they could do was squat on the floor and cover their heads.
There were 82 students in the school from the second to sixth grades. The eleven first graders had already finished their classes and gone home.
At 2:47 pm, over the PA system, the teachers told everyone to quickly go outside to the school’s athletic grounds. Water in the pool spilled out, so many students had to take a detour through the school infirmary to go outside.
At 2:49 pm, a major tsunami warning was announced by the Japan Meteorological Agency for the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. The tsunami was first estimated to be 3 meters (later corrected at 3:14 pm to 6 meters).
A minute later, a tsunami warning was also broadcast in Namie’s coastal areas telling people to quickly evacuate to designated evacuation sites. The school principal ordered everyone to evacuate.
After taking a head count of the 82 children gathered outside, the teachers started guiding the children to Mt. Ohira at 2:54 pm, 1.5 km away. They left in a rush without taking any belongings and didn’t even have time to wear their jackets in the freezing cold. They still wore their indoor gym shoes.
The 6th graders led the way amid aftershocks, including an M5- quake in Namie as they left. They also held the hands of the younger children and gave encouragement along the way.
They soon had to cross Route 254 (Hama-kaido road) which was jammed with cars trying to escape. The teachers managed to stop the traffic to let the kids cross the road to Mt. Ohira.
Some of the kids’ parents came to pick up their kids at school, but they would only make the traffic jam worse and delay their escape. So they were told to meet them on Mt. Ohira, and the kids kept on going.
The principal and head teacher stayed behind at the school to make sure no one remained and to tell arriving parents that the kids had evacuated to Mt. Ohira where they could meetup later. The principal later headed for Mt. Ohira by car at 3:15 pm.
After making sure no one was left in the school and no more parents came to the school, the head teacher also evacuated to Mt. Ohira by car at 3:25 pm, about 13 minutes before the tsunami hit the school.
At 3:15 pm, the teachers and kids reached the foot of Mt. Ohira, but the teachers couldn’t find the trail going up the mountain. Fortunately, a 4th grader named Ryuta knew a trail into the mountains where he had jogged for baseball practice. The teachers trusted his word and followed him into the mountain. One student named Hiroki was wheelchair bound, so a teacher carried him piggyback up the mountain.
At 3:30 pm, the tsunami forecast was corrected to 10 meters instead of six.
At 3:33 pm, the first tsunami wave hit the Namie coast, then the emergency PA system announced that the tsunami hit the town and urged people to evacuate to higher ground.
The school was soon hit by the tsunami at around 3:38 pm. The school clock stopped at 3:38 pm. The tsunami reached up to the top of the school’s first floor, and the gymnasium was heavily damaged by debris.
Meanwhile, the teachers and children reached the top of Mt. Ohira at 4:00 pm. All were present. Being on the forested mountain with no clearing, the teachers and kids could hear but not see the rumbling tsunami.
So a few teachers went back down the mountain to take a look and was shocked by the widespread devastation in progress. The dry land where they had just come from was now inundated with seawater and floating debris. Tsunami waves even reached the foot of Mt. Ohira. They definitely couldn’t turn back despite pleas from the children wanting to go home. Those teachers also met the head teacher who had arrived.
The teachers did not allow the kids to see traumatic scenes of their neighborhoods being destroyed and cars on the road getting hit by the water.
Atop Mt. Ohira, there were also other town residents who had evacuated. One local recommended them to walk down to the other side of the mountain before dark.
At 4:05 pm, the teachers decided that they couldn’t remain on the mountain, so they followed the local’s advice and were guided down the narrow trail and reached Route 6 (main highway) and neighboring Futaba Town at 4:30 pm.
While resting in a roadside parking lot, they saw earthquake cracks appearing on the ground during aftershocks. Certain roads also had cracks and had to be closed, so traffic was jammed.
One teacher ran to city hall to get help. They waited for him to return, but it was getting dark and light snow fell. The children were freezing and frightened and in despair. They could hardly endure it any longer.
Then at 4:40 pm, a large, flat-bed transport truck (15-ton) going to Iwaki noticed the kids huddled on the roadside and stopped by. The truck driver asked what they were doing.
The teachers explained, “We called on Namie City Hall for a bus to pick us up, but it’s not here yet.”
The truck driver then offered all of them to ride on his truck. “Everyone get on the flat bed, I’ll take you there.” (「荷台に乗れっ みんな乗せて行ってやる」)
They accepted with great joy and everyone squeezed onto the empty, roofless flat bed for the 15-minute ride (5 km) in the freezing cold to Namie City Hall.
All 95 shivering students, teachers, and locals arrived at 5:00 pm and took refuge inside Sunshine Namie gymnasium that became an evacuation center next to city hall. Some kids reunited with their parents who took them home. All were safe including all the eleven first graders who evacuated from home.
They found out later that the bus that was sent to pick them up had gone to Mt. Ohira instead, where they had first evacuated to. So they missed each other.
Finding the truck driver
After dropping them off, the truck driver sped off and nobody got his name. Radio Fukushima kept asking the public for his identity or contact info for over two years: “To the truck driver who drove the Ukedo Elementary School children to City Hall on 3.11, please contact us!”
Fukushima TV finally found him to be a Mr. Kunitama (國玉) and interviewed him. Other TV stations also interviewed him for the third anniversary of 3.11 in 2014.
He was working at a trucking company named Kunitama Kogyo (國玉興業) in Iwaki run by his older brother. On 3.11, he finished making a delivery to Sendai (Miyagi Prefecture) in the early morning and was heading back to Iwaki. After he had lunch in Odaka, Minami-Soma near Route 6, the earthquake struck.
A bridge had collapsed, so he tried to detour on a mountainous route, but it was closed to large vehicles. So he went back to Route 6 in Namie where he came across the school children. They looked to be cold and in distress, so he stopped by and offered the ride.
After dropping them off, Mr. Kunitama couldn’t get back to Iwaki due to road closures, so he parked his truck in the parking lot of a closed shop and spent the night. By the next evening, he was able to get home to Iwaki.
On March 13, he and his family evacuated Iwaki due to the nuclear disaster and moved to his sister’s house in Tokyo. A week later, he returned to Iwaki, but there was no trucking work for a week.
When he starting trucking again and was in the Tokyo area to eat in a restaurant, he was often told to leave because of his Iwaki license plates. People feared he was irradiated. This discrimination continued for quite a while.
Namie Town wanted to award him a Certificate of Appreciation (感謝状), but he declined. Mr. Kunitama did attend the opening of Ukedo Elementary School as a disaster heritage site on October 27, 2021. Forever hero among the former students and teachers and their families.
This school evacuation story and his truck are featured in a Japanese children’s picture book (絵本「請戸小学校物語 大平山をこえて」) published in March 2015 by an NPO.
Although the teachers and children all survived, many of them lost their homes and even family members such as siblings, grandparents, or even parents.
The Ukedo area had 154 people who died or went missing. There were victims who didn’t evacuate, people who went back home to get family members or personal effects and didn’t make it back, and first responders (firefighters) and policemen who got caught in the tsunami while trying to save lives.
From the next morning, everyone in Namie had to evacuate due to the nuclear accident. Many Namie residents relocated to Nihonmatsu city.
In August 2011, together with five other elementary schools in Namie, Ukedo Elementary School restarted classes in temporary buildings in Nihonmatsu where many Namie evacuees relocated. The school officially closed when it merged with another elementary school in 2018.
Preserving the school buildings
It took over five years until it was safe enough to start cleaning up Ukedo Elementary School from December 2016. In February 2019, it was decided to preserve the school as a disaster heritage site.
They wanted to preserve the school so people wouldn’t forget what happened and to emphasize the importance of disaster preparedness. Former residents also wanted to preserve the school since it was the only building left from their original neighborhood. Over 600 homes in the Ukedo and adjacent areas were destroyed or damaged by the tsunami.
Ukedo Elementary School reopened on October 27, 2021 as a disaster heritage site. The public can now visit and see the extensive earthquake and tsunami damage inside the school especially on the first floor and gymnasium. The school’s second floor is still in good condition and used as exhibition rooms.
Namie Town Ukedo Elementary School
Hours: 9:30 am–4:30 pm (enter by 4 pm), closed Tue.
Phone: 0240-23-7041
Address: Ukedo Mochidaira, Namie-machi, Futaba-gun, Fukushima Prefecture
Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kJ545Ke6tQZFQ61o6
Website: https://namie-ukedo.com/en/
Getting there: The nearest train station is JR Namie Station. From there, you will need to call a taxi in Namie. Or you can get off the train at JR Futaba Station and rent a bicycle for free.
Kanko Taxi (観光タクシー)
Phone: 0240-35-4125
Namie Town Great East Japan Disaster Memorial monument
Namie Town Great East Japan Disaster Memorial monument (浪江町東日本大震災慰霊碑) for disaster victims in Namie. The first tsunami wave hit Namie about 40 minutes after the earthquake. The third wave was as high as 15.5 meters. Many people did not believe such a tsunami were possible and did not evacuate in time.
The tsunami claimed 182 people with 31 people still missing. This Ukedo area suffered the most fatalities with 127 deceased and 27 missing. Due to the nuclear disaster and evacuation order for Namie, immediate search and rescue operations in Namie could not be conducted.
This monument was unveiled on March 11, 2017 about 2 km from the coast. It’s on a low hill which was a designated evacuation site for tsunami. It’s near Mt. Ohira near where students and teachers evacuated from Ukedo Elementary School which can be seen in the distance on the right in the photo.
The monument is next to Ohirayama Cemetery (大平山霊園) which was moved here after the original cemetery was destroyed by the tsunami. Many of the disaster victims are buried here.
Behind this monument, north of Ukedo Elementary School, it was mainly farmland. It was littered with tsunami debris and washed-up boats for at least four years before it got cleaned up. Most homes were near the coast.
The back of the monument is inscribed with the following explanation in Japanese:
At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, an M7 earthquake struck Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate Prefectures. Houses collapsed and roads were cut off by the earthquake. About 40 minutes later, the first tsunami wave reached the coast of Namie Town. After the second wave, a huge tsunami over 15 meters high hit Namie. Residents had never experienced such a huge tsunami, so people who were late in evacuating were shocked by the tsunami which totally inundated Ukedo, Nakahama, Ryotake, and Minami-tanashio.
The next day, the Japanese government ordered evacuations due to the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Residents were thereby forced to evacuate and had to abandon search and rescue operations. The earthquake and tsunami claimed the precious lives of 182 residents. We must keep in mind that disasters will happen again.
This area has been inhabited since ancient times. This is where we can see the blue ocean and white sandy beaches. This monument was erected here to console the souls of the victims, to cherish the fertile land and ocean beloved by our ancestors, and to hope for the reconstruction of Namie Town.
Monument built by Namie Town, March 11th, 2017
平成二十三（西暦二〇一一）年三月十一日午後二時四十六分。福島・宮城・岩手を中心に最大震度七の地震が発生した。この地震により家屋は倒壊し、道路は寸断された。その約四十分後に浪江町沿岸に津波の第一波が到達した。第二波が襲来した後、さらに高さ十五mを超す大津波が町を襲った。住民にはこれまで大津波被災の記憶はなく、避難が遅れ大津波に驚愕し、請戸・中浜・両竹・南棚塩の集落は全てのみ込まれた。
翌十二日には東京電力福島第一原子力発電所の事故により、国から避難指示が発令されたため、住民は避難を余儀なくされ、捜索や救命を断念せざるをえなかった。この地震と津波により、住民百八十二名の尊い命が失われた。私達は、災害は再び必ずやってくることを忘れてはならない。
ここは太古の昔から人が住み、青い海と白い砂浜を眺望できる所である。この地に、犠牲者の御霊を慰めるとともに、先人が愛した豊穣の大地と海を慈しみ、浪江町の復興を願い、この碑を建立する。
平成二十九年三月十一日 建立者 浪江町
Monument location map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/uqXDev1qXB4SUAvz8
https://futabafuture.com/2017/03/13/17-3-11-namie/
Michinoeki Namie roadside station
Michi-no-eki (道の駅) literally means “roadside station.” It refers to local souvenir shops combined with a farmer’s market and restaurant to provide a shopping and rest stop for people traveling by car or bus. They can be found all over Japan.
Roadside stations in disaster-affected areas of Tohoku have become local symbols of recovery, boosting local morale and local employment. Patronizing these outlets also supports local farmers, fishermen, and industries.
In Namie, Michinoeki-Namie roadside farmer’s market is another sign and symbol of the town’s ongoing recovery and reconstruction. It opened in August 2020 and combines a gift shop, farmer’s market selling fresh local produce (onions, strawberries, shiso) and food products, and large food court.
Local food, drink, and crafts include Iwaki Kotobuki sake (磐城壽), Namie yakisoba noodles, and Obori-Soma-yaki pottery (大堀相馬焼) with a running horse design.
The facility includes a rebuilt sake brewery, bakery, pottery studio offering pottery lessons, kitchen for cooking lessons, conference room, tourist information, meetup space, kids playground, outdoor event space, Muji brand clothing store (無印良品), and restrooms. A great beacon and boon for local residents and visitors alike.
Right: Manhole cover in Namie featuring Ukedon mochi mascot with a fish head hairstyle in a ceramic bowl.
Fukushima Prefecture has Pokemon egg character “Lucky” as its official supporter. The word “Fuku” (福) in Fukushima means good luck, good fortune, or happiness. Lucky can bring happiness. This character also looks like a peach which is one of Fukushima’s major products. Lucky can be found in Fukushima on manholes, kids playgrounds, souvenir products, and even Abukuma Kyuko trains.
More info in Japanese: https://www.tif.ne.jp/pokemon/
Michinoeki-Namie (道の駅なみえ)
Hours: 10:00 am–6:00 pm, closed Mon. and last Wed. of the month. (Pottery studio closed Wed.)
Address: Chimeiji 60, Kiyohashi, Namie-cho, Futaba-gun, Fukushima (福島県双葉郡浪江町大字幾世橋字知命寺60)
Phone (Japanese): 0240-23-7121
Location map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ywchJma5xvESL27d6
Directions: 15-min. walk from JR Namie Station.
Website: https://michinoeki-namie.jp
Also see:
- Fukushima’s Road to Recovery
- Fukushima’s three regions
- March 11, 2011 triple disaster in Fukushima
- Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
- “Hope tourism” in Tohoku Region
- Namie, Fukushima after 3.11
- Ukedo Elementary School