TOKYO – On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard sank a wayward Japanese fishing vessel off the coast of Alaska that had floated across the Pacific after being ripped from its moorings by the huge tsunami that struck on March 11 last year.

But could more Japanese flotsam and jetsam reach U.S. shores?

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Since last year, the Japanese government has been tracking and posting on a website detailed information of debris sightings collected from ships in the Pacific Ocean.

Reports of capsized boats peaked in July with 17 cases, dwindling to two found in November. There were no sightings for the months of December and January.

'Ghost ship' sinks to bottom of Gulf of Alaska after Coast Guard fires at it

According to the calculations by Japan's Cabinet Secretariat for Ocean Policy, as much as 5 million tons of debris, mostly damaged homes, were sucked into the sea by the tsunami. It is calculated that up to 70 percent of the material was concrete, which quickly sunk to the bottom of the ocean. But the remaining 30 percent may still be floating in the Pacific.

"Even though most nations have expressed their understanding that the debris was caused by an uncontrollable natural disaster, it nonetheless came from our country and we will do our utmost to fulfill our responsibilities" said Tetsuyuki Tamura, an official at the Ocean Policy department, adding that the most important task will be the sharing of information, particularly with the United States and Canada.

As for the effects of the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear complex, the Japanese government said the risk of radiation in the ocean is low, citing the fact that most of the wreckage was pulled into the sea 24 hours before the troubles at the plant. As for any subsequent radiation particles washed into the sea, it would have been very little in relation to the huge amounts of water in the ocean.

More photos of the 'ghost ship'

In February of this year, Japanese experts were dispatched to Hawaii to meet with their counterparts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for further exchange of information.

As a result, sometime this month, Japan is expected to post a computer simulation of the debris traveling across the Pacific to help gauge its route and the speed. 
 

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ICHINOSEKI, Japan – We’re on the Iwate coast of Japan this week, looking back on the devastation wrought here nearly a year ago by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that flattened coastal communities and killed nearly 20,000 people.

The cleanup we have witnessed on our frequent trips back here since the disaster is simply astounding and is a testament to the strength of the communities that remain. In fishing towns like Otsuchi, Kesennuma and Ichinomaki, NBC News has documented the gradual steps to recovery, from search and rescue, to the clearing of rubble, to the sorting and removal of debris from city streets.

One thing absent in our coverage though: reconstruction.

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My colleague Ian Williams earlier in the week wrote about the issues facing the town of Otsuchi, where 10 percent of the town’s population of 16,000 is dead or missing and nearly 70 percent of the town was obliterated by the tsunami.

Today, all that stands in much of Otsuchi are the foundations of the buildings that once stood there – skeletal remains of sleepy neighborhoods that once occupied these parts. In the surrounding hills around, small communities of short-term, pre-fabricated homes for the displaced have sprung up, granting a small degree of normalcy to residents who had spent months living in schools, recreation centers and other temporary camps.

When the government will allow, much less begin, construction of new permanent homes in these areas is difficult to predict. In communities like Otsuchi, the debate seems to be centered on whether residents should be allowed to begin rebuilding now or must the town’s coastal defenses be strengthened before development can begin.

With many of these coastal towns having disproportionally older populations – a result of the departure of many younger residents to other parts of Japan for work – the desire for quickly built, affordable housing is a popular sentiment among people here.

It was with that backdrop that I watched a video yesterday released in early January of a 30-story hotel tower being built in China in a shockingly quick 360 hours. 

It’s not the first time we’ve seen such feats from China, or from Chinese construction firm, Broad Sustainable Building (BSB). Two years ago, the three-year-old company shocked the world by constructing a 15-floor hotel in two days.

This time around they doubled down on the aptly named T-30 Hotel.

Not only that, but they gave viewers a unique look at a style of building construction that has been employed by the West for some time, but with unique adaptions that BSB developed and hope will help launch the style throughout Asia.

Pre-fab solution?
BSB’s system of pre-fabrication involves constructing segments of a building in advance at an indoor factory. There the basic building blocks of a modern building – things like ventilation, water pipes and electrical wiring – are pre-installed, allowing for the segments to be uniformly stacked at the construction site and assembled like Lego blocks.

The savings in construction time is perhaps the most note-worthy thing. An interesting piece done on BSB and its latest feat by the Los Angeles Times quotes one expert on pre-fabricated architecture who noted that such construction techniques can shave a third or a half off building schedules in western countries.

BSB sliced off between one-half and two-thirds of construction time on T-30.  Not to mention 20 to 30 percent off building costs through reduced construction times and greater efficiencies.

And since much of the construction is done in the relative safety of the factory floor compared to many stories in the air, BSB’s on-site accidents noticeably dipped.

The company also claims a number of innovations in its designs that would certainly appeal to rebuilding residents in northeastern Japan. After all, the inspiration for BSB’s formation were reconstruction efforts in China’s Sichuan province after an 8.0 earthquake rocked the region in 2008, leveling cities and leaving towns in such disrepair, they were forced to completely relocate.

According to the video, which was released by BSB, the new hotel is designed to handle earthquakes up to 9.0 on the Richter scale and incorporates design advances like external solar shading, three-stage air purification systems and improved insulation techniques that make the building five times more energy efficient than other Chinese buildings.

Pre-fabricated building techniques are already in use throughout the affected regions of Japan as a form of temporary housing. In fact, Japan was already moving residents into pre-fabricated houses just eight days after the quake and as of last week there were 52,620 temporary houses built in 911 locations throughout the country.

However, much of this housing is built on school sports fields and other public spaces – often contracted out for two years before the temporary housing must be disassembled and the space returned.

That’s a point not lost on the residents we talked to this week. Many living in short-term housing are older and have no meaningful income. So they live off pensions with no realistic means of building or renting new homes.

To deal with this issue that will seemingly boil over in 2014, Iwate prefecture alone has announced they will construct between 4,000-5,000 permanent public housing units for the displaced.

Where and when these housing blocks will be built in this nation where land is at a premium is one that will certainly keep urban planners here busy for years to come.

The lessons learned from the T-30 exercise should not be lost on municipal governments up and down the Iwate coast. Pre-fabricated housing once viewed as a short-term fix can now be the answer to a very long-term problem.

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UTATSU, Japan – At first light, the cove at Utatsu is a picture of tranquility, the silence broken only by the chugging of engines as a fleet of small boats makes its way out across the flat blue water.

But the small harbor from which they leave is cracked and has sunk by two and a half feet. Beyond the beach is the crumpled remains of a seawall, tossed aside by the tsunami, and behind that the foundations are all that are left of a cluster of homes.

"I can't even find the words to describe it," said Hiroko Mirura, who heads a local women's fishing association, and who lost her husband in last year’s tsunami.

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Before the disaster, the local economy was built around scallops, oysters and seaweed – with the seaweed from here prized across Japan. But Utatsu lost 80 of its 100 fishing boats.

 

The boats that survived were mostly out at sea when the raging water swept in, but for the first time since the disaster, they are now back out, harvesting seaweed.

 

"It's a start," Mirura told me, "but we still need to fix the fishing facilities." Now up to 200 people are back at work.

Slimy mess tastes good
We joined the seaweed farmers on a bitterly cold morning as they pulled from the water giant branches of the slimy weed, known in Japan as wakame. It's grown from long frames, marked by rows of buoys. Mostly this is a family business, and men and women with craggy weathered faces worked methodically at the weed with their curved knives.

Few words were spoken, though one man, taking a break, cigarette hanging from his lips, told us: "It's good, the quality is very good this year." They expect it to fetch high prices in the market.

Back on shore, the Wakame is dunked in boiling water, to soften and clean it, before being salted as a preservative. In the past this processing machinery had been kept at their homes, but was mostly swept away with those houses.

The new equipment has been provided under a program backed by the U.S. charity Mercy Corps and their Japanese partner Peace Winds. The giant U.S. retailer Walmart also provided support.

"This is really the beginning of seeing their economy come back to life," said Randolph Martin, who heads Mercy Corps' East Asia operations, and has spent a good chunk of the last year in Japan looking for this type of high impact micro-investment.

"It’s more than just getting the economy going. It's about getting their lives and livelihoods back," Martin told me. "You look here and you don't see helpless victims of a disaster. You see resilient survivors."

 

Around 100 sets of processing equipment have been supplied to the community here. One elderly man bent over his tank of boiling water, stirring the weed with his gloved hand. He stepped back to hand me a stalk of Wakame with a sort of cork-screw type head on it, and regarded as a particular delicacy. It was slimy, crunchy and salty – but surprisingly tasty.

The elderly man laughed, so did several women seated on the ground nearby, sorting through more seaweed, just dragged like some slimy alien off another boat.

The task of rebuilding this battered coast is enormous, but for the small hamlet of Utatsu the return of their seaweed business is an important step towards restoring their livelihoods and sense of community.

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OTSUCHI, Japan – When 79-year-old Junko Takashi saw the tide fast receding in the bay below her house, she remembered the warnings of her mother and her grandmother, that this was a sign of a tsunami.

But still she hesitated.

"I lived on high ground, on the hillside," she said. "I never thought the water could reach here."

She decided to take no chances, and leaving all her belongings behind her, she climbed to higher ground. She didn't see the tsunami rolling in, but remembers the terrible noise – like a waterfall, only far, far louder, she recalled.

By the time it was over, all that was left of her house were its foundations.

Some 70 percent of her town, Otsuchi, was destroyed and 10 percent of the town’s population of 16,000 are dead or missing. Its fishing industry, the backbone of the local economy, was obliterated.

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Yellow flag marks sign of life
One year on and Takashi lives in a temporary home, consisting of a tiny living room, narrow kitchen and bathroom. It's one of a cluster of 80 temporary homes erected on the outskirts of what remains of Otsuchi.

She lives alone, her belongings neatly arranged in little cubicles around her. We could barely squeeze into her living room as she pointed to the television, fridge, microwave and heater, all donated by charities who were at the forefront of a massive aid operation in the weeks and months after the disaster.

Now much of that initial support has gone. "We're on our own now," she said.

"You've got to be positive. I am 79-years-old, who knows how many years I have left."

She told me that before the tsunami she was pretty self-sufficient, since she had land to grow all the vegetables she needed, and her two brothers were fishermen. Now she had to buy everything with her pension, while trying to save for an uncertain future.

But free temporary housing, in which 2,000 of Otsuchi's people now live, is only available for two years.

Outside her home, and outside those of many of her neighbors, flutters a little yellow flag. I asked her what that was for.

"They are for everybody over 65 and living alone," she replied. They are asked to put the flags out in the morning and take them down in the evening. If no flag appears in the morning, then officials will come and check on them.

Mountains of debris and uncertain plans
Otsuchi appears to have made great strides in cleaning up the twisted wreckage that was once their town, and removing the fishing boats flung inland.

Looking down from the surrounding hills and all you see is a flat plain with a dusting of snow, just the foundations marking where buildings used to stand.

But the remains of the town has essentially been scooped up and piled into vast mountains of debris, which will take years to dispose of.

Takashi believes she will be allocated a new apartment once she leaves her temporary home, but the town of Otsuchi has been slow to draw up plans for the future. There is still no blueprint for what will replace a town virtually wiped from the map.

The local mayor has pledged to build a new 50-foot high seawall, more than twice the height of the one tossed aside by the tsunami. But there is no agreement as to where any new town will be built, nor how it can be made economically viable.

Elderly people, who dominate many of these small coastal towns, are wary of grand plans for new (and more economically sustainable) towns. They form an important political group.

"I want to live where I used to live," Takashi said. "I was comfortable there."

Staying positive
The future looks daunting, but Takashi is remarkably upbeat, showing me photos of some of the charity workers and celebrities who have visited over the months.

"I like visitors. I like to talk with people," she said.

"It's always been my policy to be positive about what lies ahead."

TOKYO –  When the earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan's northeast coast last March, approximately 60,000 acres of agricultural land was inundated by seawater, resulting in damages to farms costing over $10.2 billion.

Miyagi Prefecture, which was closest to the epicenter of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake, was particularly hard hit with over 37,000 acres of its and drenched in salt water and debris from the tsunami.

The clean-up and rejuvenation job is  too big  for humans, especially the aging populace to tend to live and work in agricultural areas, many of whom lost everything in the disaster.

But now, the Japanese government is planning to implement an experimental program that will use robots to do the heavy lifting and unmanned tractors to work fields on land that was swamped by the tsunami.

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The agricultural ministry’s six-year plan would take up to 600 acres of land in Miyagi, rent it from owners and conduct test trials of Japan's latest technologies from the nation's all-star roster of companies, including Panasonic, Hitachi, Yanmar and Fujitsu.

The agricultural ministry has already earmarked $9 million for this year's budget and plans to spend about $52 million over the next six years.

In addition to the robotic tools, the project will test some previously existing technologies, such as LED lights that give off ultraviolet rays that can fend off pests in an environmentally friendly manner.

Study groups with the technology companies have already been conducted at the ministry and actual testing and research will begin this year.

The project will encompass four towns in Miyagi – Natori, Iwanuma, Watari and Yamamoto –and focus on people who lost their farming equipment in the tsunami and are unable to restart on their own. The project will be centered on a 172-acre farm plot in Natori.

Another plot of land in Yamamoto will be used to offer new employment for those who gave up their land for the project by creating a farm using desalinated potted soil to grow berries and other produce.

"Our main focus is on the reconstruction and the immediate assistance for those who lost their ability to farm because of the tsunami," said Kazuhiko Shimada, the agricultural ministry spokesperson. 

The project is also aimed at tackling the thorny issue of an aging farm population, with the ministry hoping that the technologies tested can improve efficiency and help graying farmers.

Also, with increasing competition on the world market, the ministry hopes to promote the creation of larger, more competitive farms.

For instance, another test will use cloud-computing to communicate with supermarkets and identify what produce is desired by consumers, so that information can then be shared with farmers.

The first stage of the project will concentrate on desalination and various technological tests will first be conducted at nearby universities and research institutes.

Although government assistance will expire in six years, Shimada hopes that enough momentum will be made that farmers will be able to work directly with the private sector and continue to seek new advances in the nation's agricultural sector.

TOKYO – Japanese car makers have had a tough year.

First the devastating March earthquake and tsunami struck at their supply chain for key auto parts and then flooding in Thailand forced some companies to suspend factory production for weeks. But the natural disasters only compounded larger economic problems for the car companies: the record high value of the yen has greatly hindered profits from export sales.

Add to those issues the growing reluctance among young Japanese to own vehicles, plus the consistent aging of Japan’s population, and all indications point to a shrinking domestic market. It’s what many here fear will eventually result in Japan's “industrial hollowing.”

The bi-annual Tokyo Motor Show will kick-off this weekend despite the adverse obstacles. With more domestic companies participating, a new event venue, and showcasing futuristic energy-efficient vehicles, the show hopes to re-invigorate Japan's domestic auto market.

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A ‘smartphone on wheels’
In his opening remarks to the press Toyota President Akio Toyoda vowed he would "never give up” and presented the company's new slogan: "Fun to Drive, Again.” 

And to do just that, Toyota unveiled its new "86" sports car, and the futuristic concept car, the Fun-Vii (which stands for Fun Vehicle Interactive Internet).

Critics have dubbed the Fun-Vii a "smartphones on wheels" or something straight out of the sci-fi movie “TRON.” Cloaked in a sleek black casing, both the exterior and the interior of the Fun-Vii car are designed to act as projection panels for the driver to display images or color depending on the "mood" of the driver.

It also comes with a "navigation concierge" where a Princess Leia-like hologram guides the driver through virtual street maps, and utilizing satellite GPS readings, the car will warn the driver of any in-coming vehicles tucked behind the corner of a building.

At the moment Toyota says there are no production plans for the Fun Vii.

Small cars for the urban, silver-haired consumer
Toyota’s real bid for the domestic market is the Aqua, their latest compact-class hybrid car, which is smaller and more budget-friendly than their popular Prius series.

All of the automakers are showcasing their new fleet of compact-sized vehicles, reflecting Japanese consumer demands for more affordable, even smaller-sized cars with improved fuel efficiency and an emphasis on conservation.

It’s also a trend which reflects the nation's increasingly silver population.

"By 2015, one out of four people will be over 65 years old. And our vision is that those people will be able to continue to lead an active life," said Honda Chief Engineer Ikuo Kurachi explaining to me the thinking behind their new "mini, mini-van" the N Box Plus.

The compact mini-van is equipped with easy-to-open sliding doors and a large interior space with a slope that can hold a 4-wheel electric scooter, the MonPal, which is designed for senior citizens. The idea is that for long distances, one can drive the N Box and then for more local mobility they can take out the MonPal.

Nissan is also looking to the future with their third generation electric vehicle concept model, the Pivo3, a three-seater with a central steering wheel and minimum turning radius of about six feet that allows drivers to park practically anywhere.

"It features technologies that we consider are going to be important for the future, particularly around urban areas. Zero emission. Highly maneuverable, urban car," said Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.

It’s a design that takes into account a future in which as  Japan’s population moves, it moves into more urban and compact “smart cities.”

Main problem: How to keep making money in Japan
But despite all these grand vision and ideas, at the moment the biggest obstacle for all of the Japanese automakers is the strong value of the yen. Not only did the yen hit a post-war high in October, it’s 50 percent higher than what it was three years ago.

"Some people can say: You're making money and you're growing. Yes, we're making money and we're growing – outside Japan," said Ghosn, speaking about the current state of the Japanese currency. "But today our main problem is we cannot justify continuing to invest in Japan and projects in Japan. And that's exactly where the problem is.”

By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer

TOYKO – If disaster struck, and millions of dollars in cash turned up, do you think it would be returned to its rightful owners?

In Japan, it was.

During the four months since the giant tsunami struck Japan's northern coast, more than 5,700 safes containing approximately $30 million has been recovered from the three hardest hit prefectures, Japan’s National Police Agency recently announced.

Remarkably – since residents of the tsunami zone have scattered across the country and even the world – 96 percent, or nearly $29.6 million in cash, has already been returned to its rightful owners, or if authorities feared the owner had died in the disaster, their closest relative. 

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Detective job to find rightful owners 
The majority of the safes recovered in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were collected by Japan’s Self Defense Force, police, and volunteers while combing through destroyed homes and buildings and clearing debris left behind by the devastating wave; some individuals also came forward with lost valuables.

Masao Sasaki, with the Iwate prefectural police, said that determining who the money belonged to and then actually finding them proved to be a great challenge and often involved excruciating detective work.

"In some cases, entire communities were completely washed away. Even if we had information on the address of the owner, there would be no building left, landlines were destroyed,” Sasaki explained. “So we went around to the various evacuation centers and started checking through the rosters."

In Iwate prefecture alone, where more than 23,000 structures along the coast were destroyed, 2,400 safes containing a total amount of $10 million was collected. Incredibly, 91 percent of it has already been returned.

Considering that up until June there were more than 330 evacuation centers in Iwate, and people were constantly moving to new locations, it was no small feat to return that much money.

“You can just imagine the difficult work involved in tracking down the owners,” Sasaki said. "In some cases where the owner was thought to have perished, we had to find the closest kin who could have been anywhere inside or outside Iwate.

It’s not unusual for Japanese, especially the elderly, to keep cash at home. In particular, fishermen, who made up a large portion of the coastal population, traditionally preferred cash transactions and often even paid salaries in cash. 

Thankfully, many of the safes also held bank books, certificates of land rights, name chops (traditional stamps used in lieu of signatures on personal documents) or some other form of identification. But because they were drenched in mud and water, each item often had to be carefully cleaned and dried, at times using a shirt iron in order to extract useful clues.

"It was important to be able to return these items properly cleaned, but our first and utmost priority was to find the owners and return their belongings as quickly as possible," said Sasaki.

Asked how they were able to return 91 percent of the lost valuables, Sasaki said it was simply the laborious work and perseverance of the prefecture’s officers.

Venturing into the nuke zone
It was a tougher task in Fukushima prefecture, where extra precaution was required to reach some of the areas affected by the nuclear accident.

When their officers entered the 12-mile-radius exclusion zone, they had to put on hazmat suits and equip themselves with survey meters so they could check the radiation levels.

"It might have taken a little longer in Fukushima," said Yoshiyasu Sato of the local prefectural police headquarters. "We had to start from the outer perimeter of the exclusion zone and slowly work our way in.”

But according to Sato, even though it took four months, the police have pretty much completed their task: they have already returned 96 percent of the $7.2 million found in some 900 safe boxes.

And in the Miyagi prefecture they had an even greater rate of return. More than 2,400 safes were collected that contained approximately $13.5 million –amazingly 99 percent of that has been returned to its owners or closest kin.

Almost done
In Iwate, as they get closer to completing the task of clearing away the rubble, the number of safes and other belongings recovered has dropped. But, Sasaki said, “the collection is still not completely zero, the numbers have come down, but items are being turned in sporadically.”

In total, if you included the money retrieved from lost wallets and purses, $48.3 million worth of cash was collected from the disaster zone. Out of that total amount, 85 percent has found its way to its rightful owners.

While the sheer amount of cash collected and returned is astounding, it is also another reminder of the scope of the damage brought by the March earthquake and tsunami which claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people and completely wiped out at least 112,000 homes and buildings.

Fishermen tend to be an optimistic lot, always hopeful that the next cast or haul of the net will yield a big payoff.

Nowhere is that more evident than among the fishermen of Minamisanriku, which lost nearly 85 percent of its fleet, its port, fish market and processing plants to the March 11 tsunami that decimated many fishing communities along Japan’s northeastern coast.

Despite the blow, Minamisanriku’s fishermen plan to return to the sea next month for the first time since the disaster in search of octopi. They’ll also reopen a makeshift market where the old one stood so they can sell whatever they catch.

Most residents of this scenic coastal community nestled amid hillside forests work in fishing, and the head of the industry association says it’s key to saving their town.

“This is a fishing town, so even though there are many issues and problems to be solved, once the fishing starts that will be a driving force to encourage people and to bring joy back to this town," said Norio Sasaki, 63, chairman of the Miyagi Fisheries cooperative, Shizugawa branch. "And once the processing companies also start, that’s going to create jobs and ... that’s going to make this town vibrant again.”

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Sasaki acknowledges that his vision of a revitalized Minamisanriku is likely years in the future.

The March 11 quake and tsunami destroyed some 60 percent of the town’s homes. About 900 people are dead or missing, including up to 60 fishermen who lived inland and didn’t think the tsunami would go that far, he said. Some 4,700 survivors, including fishermen, are living in shelters.

The town’s fishermen catch salmon, oysters, octopus and harvest wakame seaweed. Together, they land the second-biggest catch in Miyagi prefecture, trailing only Onagawa to the south. The industry, including processing plants, generates about $49.5 million a year.

But of the 1,000 boats registered with the fishing association before the tsunami, only 56 survived intact. Another 100 were recovered, but in need of repairs.

But Sasaki said that he has heard from about 340 fishermen, or 80 percent of the association’s full-time membership before the tsunami, who are telling him, “We want to do fishing again, we want to go to the sea again.” That gives him hope that the fleet will grow to 500 to 600 boats by the end of 2011.

For the time being, Minamisanriku fishermen with seaworthy boats are collecting floating wreckage from the tsunami: large floats for nets, trees, rope for fish farming, parts of boats and other debris that appears to be from homes. They make between $100 and $150 a day doing this, though that doesn’t come close to replacing their usual income of between $86,000 and $124,000 a year. Japan’s fishing ministry is boosting cleanup wages, since fishermen don’t get unemployment insurance.

Another barrier to getting back into business is the lack of a port.

“There’s no port to put all of the boats in and because the land has sunk, when the high tide comes in, all the boats will come into town,” Sasaki said, adding that 11 boats were delivered on Thursday morning, but the fishermen had to park them on a mountainside. For now, most of the debris-collecting boats are operating from a single dock.

The fishermen also are concerned that the sluice gates leading to the Niida River,which were closed before the tsunami and now are jammed shut, could impact the salmon catch the town is famous for.

Because town officials and the fishing association have “mountains of things to do” and are starting from “minus" zero, Sasaki said it may take five years for the town’s fishing industry to completely rebound.

Fifty-seven-year-old Takumi Oyama, who took a crew out on Friday morning to collect debris from the sea, said he was about to give up on fishing until officials found one of his five boats after the tsunami, But he said he remains anxious because his livelihood has been so disrupted.

"I want to start fishing again once we're done cleaning," he said, noting he was living off savings and insurance. "The  volume is expected to shrink, but that's our agenda for the time being."

Masayuki Miura, 20, joined the crew on Oyama's boat after his family’s four fishing boats were washed away by the tsunami. He said his father was doing the same on another boat.

"It's very severe and I'm sure my father is feeling the same way, too," said Miura, a third-generation fisherman who lives in an evacuation shelter. But he remains positive. "I want to continue fishing and I'm sure I'll be able to do it again."

Sasaki said such faith in the future is common among his members:

“We were once betrayed by the tsunami, but considering how they make a living, there’s nothing else but the ocean.”

This isn’t how Michio and Ryoko Konno envisioned spending their golden years. 

The Konnos are picking up tsunami debris five days a week near their demolished home in Minamisanriku, earning about $100 apiece for a day’s work. 

Michio Konno, 63, was working as a maritime engineer and Ryoko, 58, was staying home and minding two grandchildren when the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, destroying most of the town’s homes and businesses. They ended up in an emergency shelter, but left after a short stay to move in with a relative. Later, they moved into an apartment in another town. 

Now they are caught in a Catch-22 faced by many tsunami survivors along Japan’s northeastern coast. Leaving emergency shelters for temporary housing means cutting the financial lifeline provided by the government, including meals, utilities and access to other resources and services provided through the shelters to help them through these difficult days. Typically, it also means buying new furniture and appliances to replace those lost to the waves. 

“It’s impossible to live on what we are making here right now. We can only just barely pay our rent,” Ryoko Konno said on a tea break from her cleanup duties late Wednesday. “If we were in an evacuation center, it would be free – electricity, food -- everything supplied. … Once you leave (the shelter), you’re out. We would have liked to have stayed, but we couldn’t.” 

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 The government has tried to help homeowners get back on their feet, giving those who lost their home about $24,000 in disaster aid and $6,500 to those whose homes were damaged. But with the fishing- and tourism-dependent economies in the coastal cities and towns in paralysis, finding work – apart from low-paying jobs picking tsunami debris -- is nearly impossible. 

That has created a difficult situation, as the government rushes to build temporary housing -- mostly prefabricated units or mobile homes – to enable people to move out of the crowded shelters, only to find that some aren’t ready to go, fearing they will be unable to make it on their own. 

Yukari Sato, a 45-year-old florist who lost her shop and home and is living in a shelter while working picking up debris, said money is “probably the most important problem” she and her neighbors face. “I think it’s tough for everyone.” 

In Minamisanriku, which lost about 3,300 homes, or 60 percent of its housing stock, 1,224 temporary housing units have been built since the disaster, but just over half – 690 – are occupied. On Sunday, a lottery will be held for another 264 of the units, 123 of which already had been offered to people who turned them down. 

Officials of the town are sympathetic to the survivors’ plight, but they say that getting them out of the shelters is crucial if Minamisanriku is to surive. 

“Otherwise, the town won’t be able to exist as a town,” said Yoshifumu Goto, 37, an employee in the town’s health and welfare division. “It can’t survive if we keep providing necessities or food that is sold in the regular shops. How would those shop owners make a living? At first, of course, we were very thankful for all of the supplies but now as we go into the next stage, the reconstruction stage, there are some cases in which those supplies prevent the town from recovering. The most important capital for the town is people.” 

Some shelter dwellers have tried to hedge their bets when they won the lottery for temporary housing, which gives priority to pregnant women, families with children under 3 and the elderly.  Town officials said some winners of a recent lottery had only moved their belongings over, while others had not even visited, the Mainichi Daily reported on June 6. 

“The reality is … the people in the shelter, they are provided three meals and the necessities, while those in the temporary houses are not. That’s the reality,” said Akira Saijo, head of the town’s construction division. “There is no measure to ease this situation. I believe there are people who can’t move into temporary houses because of this issue.” 

Saijo said the town held a community meeting on June 5 to discuss the situation and imposed a new rule requiring lottery winners to move into their temporary housing within a week, or return the key. Occupancy increased afterward, the Kahoku Online Network reported.  

Saijo and Goto said it was the prefecture’s decision not to extend aid to residents in temporary housing. 

“The temporary houses, moving into them, is not a solution at all. People have lost houses, income, family and jobs, so even moving into the temporary houses doesn’t mean they can live independently,” Saijo said, adding that he wished it was possible to at least provide food to those in temporary housing. 

Some locals in Minamisanriku are finding ways to get around the cutoff. 

“Everyone is very nice and they give me food to take home and we all share things,” Ryoko Konno said of her team of debris collectors. “Everyone shares their energy with me and I can get lots of information, for instance, there is something happening today or there are supplies arriving … There’s no supplies where we are and there’s no one to bring them to us, but if we come here they all know that we’ve had to evacuate and they’ll help us out with foodstuffs and whatever we need.” 

Nobuko Chiba, 65, who is living in temporary housing with her husband, Masayoshi, and two adult daughters, said her family is barely making ends meet. And as she tries to stretch her paycheck for picking up debris, her disabled husband’s pension and earthquake insurance payout of $41,300 on their home, which only covered about 30 percent of its value, to cover their monthly expenses, she fears for the future. 

“You can only stay two years in temporary housing so we’re going to have to be self-sufficient at the end of that,” said Chiba, who fled her home of 35 years as the tsunami engulfed it. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to rebuild on the same plot that we had before and if that happens then we’ll have to buy another plot of land and build a house. I don’t think that will be possible.”

“I was happy to be alive after the tsunami, but now, looking back, sometimes I wonder what was better.”

Many townspeople are hoping that a draft plan for the rebuilding of Minamisanriku, expected to be presented in September, will answer some of their questions. But that is a long wait for people living on the edge of survival. 

“There’s nothing we can do now but live day to day,” said Chiba, “and hope we get some glimpse of our future.”

 

Before officials in Minamisanriku, Japan, can begin rebuilding from the March 11 tsunami, they must first dispose of what remains of their coastal town: an estimated 650,000 to 700,000 tons of wreckage that they have nowhere to put.

It’s a monumental challenge, and one being faced by communities along hundreds of miles of Japan’s battered northeastern coast.

The debris covers an estimated 10 square kilometers (a little less than 4 square miles, or three times the size of New York’s Central Park) of the fishing town, one of Japan’s hardest hit communities. It comes in all shapes and sizes: cars, refrigerators, wood, steel, air conditioners, concrete rubble, clothes, broken glass and countless other forms.

Town officials, who estimate it will cost about $27.4 million to remove it, have plans to burn as much of the debris as possible and recycle what they can.

But since Japan has little landfill space left, the rest may eventually be shipped overseas. The New York Times reported on June 3 that the government of Miyagi prefecture, which includes Minamisanriku, also plans to use land adjacent to Matsushima, a group of islands considered one of “the three most beautiful places” in Japan, as a dump.

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Officials are planning to build five incinerators in Miyagi prefecture, in which Minamisanriku is located. But the one that the town will use in Motoyoshi, in nearby Kesennuma city, won't be operational until the summer or fall of 2012. That puts the companies in charge of the cleanup in a quandary.

"The debris storage space will be used up soon. Unless we secure other space to dump the debris, we may have to stop the cleanup," said Takashi Abe of Abei Construction, one of the 20 companies hired to collect the rubble from Minamisanriku. "That's the biggest issue we're facing right now."

The cleanup began in late March, but initially the pace was slow, as the crews also were searching for bodies in the town, where 900 people died or vanished.

"While we were cleaning up the debris, we were also looking for those (missing) people, so we had to do it delicately," said Akira Saijo, head of the town office's construction division, which is overseeing the debris removal. "The pace of cleaning it up was slow until the end of May."

Abe, whose company is cleaning one of three sectors of the town, said all of the cleanup crews alone are employing about 100 excavators and up to 70 trucks, said Abe. Enough debris to fill 500 large trucks is cleared daily, he said, but in some areas removal has just begun.

The garbage is divided into "burnable and nonburnable," with the latter being split into various types, such as plastic, iron and vinyl, Abe said. Materials like steel and concrete will be recycled. Other companies are handling the disposal of vehicles.

As slow as it is proceeding, the cleanup has one immediate benefit: It is one of the only sources of employment in the economically idled town. Workers – many of them survivors of the tsunami – can be seen each day combing through the debris fields, filling plastic bags with burnable material and picking up items that could be dangerous, like big shards of jagged glass and metal. Fishermen, who are jobless due to the destruction of the fish market, are also being hired to collect wreckage that is floating at sea.

The human hands are key in many ways to rehabilitating the land, said Abe, who employs 80 such part-time workers out of a total crew of 300.

"By giving them this work, we give them hope and income so that we can build our town together," he said.

Abe said the company also had “special handlers” on hand to deal with any hazardous materials, such as needles and medicines from a demolished hospital, or fertilizer from rice paddies.

Debris ready for permanent disposal – including piles of tires, wood, metal and hand-filled plastic bags -- is stacked up along roads, waiting for trucks to haul it away.

Saijo, the Minamisanriku official in overseeing the cleanup, said the interim step “is a waste of time and a waste of money." But without the incinerators, he said, there is no other choice.

Abe noted that having these new piles around town creates another cause for concern: hygiene.

"As the rainy season hits Japan and the summer comes, we'll have issues like odor, flies and mosquitos. We already have those issues now. But how we can prevent those issues from spreading will be our biggest challenge," Abe said.

Saijo and Abe believe about 50 percent of the material will eventually be burned.

"By burning (it) into ash, you can reduce the content to one-tenth," Abe said, noting he thought the ash would likely then be buried.

It’s not known how much of the debris can be recycled, as saltwater complicates the process and spending a lot of time sorting recyclables could hold up the cleanup, Abe said.

What is clear is that the task will take considerable time. Saijo said only 10 percent of the debris has been removed so far and predicts the work won’t be done until the end of March 2012 -- depending on when the incinerators are operational.

"I am hoping after three years, five years at the latest, this area will be reborn completely," Abe said.

But Abe took a more optimistic view, saying that between 200,000 and 300,000 tons of debris – roughly 30 to 45 percent of the total -- had been removed so far.

For many residents, the mountains of wreckage can’t be removed soon enough.

“I want it cleaned up as fast as possible," said Yukari Sato, a 45-year-old mother of three whose floral shop and home were wiped out and is now working in the debris fields. "Until we have it cleaned up, we can’t start anything."