The 2011 East Japan Earthquake Bulletin of the Tohoku Geographical Association
http://tohokugeo.jp/disaster/disaster-e.html
19 April 2011, updated 30 April 2012

Brief explanation on the regional characteristics of Sanriku Coast
Takehiko TAKANOProfessor, Tohoku Gakuin University, Email: tktk@izcc.tohoku-gakuin.ac.jp

Regional outline of Sanriku Coast where coastal settlements had catastrophic destruction by the tsunami
is presented, including its location, history, main local industries, tunami damage, and prospects for therecovery.

1. Introduction
As presented in the beginning two chapters reported by the author, Sanriku Coast is the mostseverely damaged region by the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on March 11, 2011.

The

most part of the coast was hit by huge tsunami with the height of 10m or more at the shoreline, andwas inundated up to 3 km from the shore in the most intensive cases★1.

Such severe natural

phenomena caused heavy damages beyond any expectations.
The name of “Sanriku” originally means three ancient regions of Rikuzen (mainly MiyagiPrefecture), Rikuchu (mainly Iwate Prefecture), and Mutsu (mainly Aomori Prefecture), all ofwhich contain “riku ( 陸 )” in their Japanesecharacter.

But now “Sanriku” is used identicalto “Sanriku Coast”.

It was owing to former

catastrophic phenomena occurred in more than ahundred years ago.

2. Physical setting and tsunami disaster
Generally called Sanriku Coast is the coastal
area along the Pacific shore with rugged andindented coastline mainly from Hachinohe toIshinomaki in northeastern Honshu (Fig.1).

It iswell-known as a typical “Rias” type of coastline
in Japan’s school education.

Such shape ofcoast finds usually the adequate place for theharbor with deep bay and calm wave.

ActuallyFig.1

many of people inhabited there depending mainly
1

Location of Sanriku Coaston seaports which enable to utilize the marine resources from their frontal sea.

And it was

fortunate for the people to have a lot of benefit from the sea where warm current (Kuroshio) andcold current (Japan Stream) meets brings rich marine fishery resources.
As is usually the case for the Rias type of coast including Sanriku, hilly landform with limited
flatlands can only allow the settlements to locate near shore often in the bottom of narrow bays.
Tsunami wave easily rise bigger in such bays, and shoreline settlements can be easily affected by it.
Unfortunately, Sanriku Coast lies parallel to the Japan Deep where the Pacific Plate moving
beneath the Japan Archipelago which causes cyclical but virtually sudden thrust of micro plates
triggering huge tsunami.

After the Meiji Restoration, Sanriku Coast suffered from severe tsunami

damages in 1896 and 1933.

The name of “Sanriku” became well known firstly in modern Japanby the newly established newspapers reporting severe tsunami damage in the coastal area ofSanriku region in 1896.

It was generally believed as a reason “Sanriku” became in use for thesame meaning of “Sanriku Coast”.

Even in pre-modern age, archive documents told some big

tsunamis gave damages to coastal area in Sanriku, among which the events happened in 869 and1611 were significant ones followed huge damages.

3. History of local economy
Sanriku Coast was known historically as a shipping area of such special products as dried
abalone, sea cucumber and shark fin, which were shipped to Yedo (ancient name of Tokyo) andsome of them were exported to China.

In the period of Japan’s industrial revolution mainly in

1910-1920’s, advanced fishing boats and methods developed manly in Europe were introduced tothis area, by which some towns in the harbors grew up to the base ports for off-shore fishing.
Hachinohe, Miyako, Kesennuma ,Onagawa and Isinomaki shown in Fig.1 are such base ports.
During the period of Japan’s High Economic Growth in 1960-70’s, these fishing ports rapidly grewup as the bases for far-sea fisheries including tuna long-lining, salmon drift net, and trawl net in thenorthern Pacific or other seas in the world.

In addition, technologies of aquaculture for “wakame”

seaweed, laver, and oyster were developed in inshore bays or inlets mainly after 1950’s.
After the latter half of 1970’s, when the Oil crisis came and the exclusive economic zone wasintroduced in Japan and some of its adjacent countries, the far-sea fishery began to decline,
resulting the long-term reduction of fishery catches in major fishing ports in Sanriku (Fig.2).
Worldwide factors such as the exhaustion of fish resources by over exploitation and the so-called“Regime Shift” in the environment system are another causes of such change in marine resources.

2Fig. 2

Change of unloaded fishes by major base port in Sanriku Coastsource : National Census of Fishery

4. Population
Becauseofabove

mentioned

regional

background, population in Sanriku Coast
concentrated in some towns or cities whichhave major fishing ports, and population
density is totally lower in comparison with theinland area (Fig.3).

Since 1970’s, thepopulation turned to decrease owing mainly tothe reduction of far-sea fishery.

Population of

the most of municipalities in Sanriku coast
decreased from 1970 to 2000, while it
increased in 8.7% totally in Tohoku Region.
The most depopulated was Oshika (now a partof Ishinomaki City) with -50.1%.
At the same time, aging of population hasadvanced.

Ratio of the population with 65

years old and over surpassed the Tohoku’s
average of 20.3% in most of municipalities; thehighest is 33.4% again in Oshika.
Fig. 3Population distribution and changesource: National Population Census3

5. Fishery and related industries
In spited of the long term reduction,
local

economyofSanriku

Coastinevitably depends largely on fisheryand its related industry, because oflimited agricultural production owing tonarrow

flatlands

andappearing cold summer.

frequently
In addition,

the remote location from the arterialtransportationlinesofTohoku

Expressway and Shinkansen became
unfavorable regional factor for thedevelopment of other industries thanfishery even during the Japan’s rapid
economic

growth.

Bysuchbackground, fishery in Sanriku Coast

Fig.4 Unloaded fishes (t) by major ports in Japankeeps a status of the major local

source : National Census of Fisheryindustry, and Sanriku is still one of Japan’s major fishery regions seated some major fishing ports(Fig.4).
Table 1Sanriku’s share in Japan for main fishery resources

fishingTunasouth tunamarlinsharksaurycod
red fishrock fishkrillabalonesquidurchinaquaculture
silver salmon
oysterascidiankelpwakameTotal Catch* : Pacific coast

Aomori *Iwate

Miyagisub total

share inJapan(%)

3,532
63340
1,012
4,054
1,966
60
333
34
81,685836

6,684310712
2,351
15,7659,105
971
20,677231
19,626
1,524

29,636
1,724
5,064
23,73532,23012,236535
302
20,287
156
14,241894

39,852
2,097
6,116
27,09852,04923,307604
706
40,964
421
115,552
3,254

16.7
34.3
31.6
75.2
22.2
47.5
81.7
49.5
89.0
23.8
35.0
27.1

399
13
140,465

12,337
1,828
12,80424,704145,101

9,174
56,66910,0792,163
18,743
278,691

9,174
69,006
11,907
15,366
43,460564,257

99.6
30.7
95.4
30.1
72.6
12.7

Source : Annual report for fishery and aquaculture （2005）

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Table 1 shows how Sanriku Cosat plays important role in Japan’s fishery, where we can graspthat many of Sanriku’s fishery resources have significant shares in the national total.

In addition,

major fishing ports have fishery related industries to distribute the unloaded resources to otherregion, to process them, to repair fishing boats, and to support to preparation for the next leave.
Table 2 shows some of such functions estimated using the national censuses.

Actually,moreother fishery related industries are usually located in fishing port, including various types of service
for the fishing, shipping, fishermen, and administrative services.

We should recognize the major

fishing ports in Sanriku hosted functional complexes of such fishery and its related industries.

Table 2Seafood
processing
factory worker

Fishery related industries in major ports in Sanriku
cold storage

plant

ship building wholesaling for retailing for fishand repair fish and shellfish and shellfish

ice making

worker factory worker factory worker

Total

shop

workershopworker

Hachinohe

88

3,872

89

3,647

54518414

69

577

81

260

350

worker

8,815

Miyako

48

1,206

52

1,114

3

20

625

1389

31

158

153

2,612

Kamaishi

16

401

18

493

12

651

14

73

2885

83

1,105

Ofunato

31

1,202

33

1,162

0

0

13

96

31

196

35

85

143

2,741

Kesennuma

96

3,417

64

3,009

4

53

26

225

91

887

33

109

314

7,700

Ongawa

32

1,199

25

1,106

3

49

1

18

171

16

39

85

2,565

Ishinomaki

115

3,868

83

3,188

5

36

33

393

74910

59

181

369

8,576

Sub Total

426 15,165

364 13,719

21205

103

1,205

300

2,903

283

917

1,497 34,114

Sanriku Total

526 17,531

439 16,00125212

128

1,395

347

3,313369

1,183

1,834 39,635

source : National Census of Fishery (2008), National Census for Establishment (2006)

6. Damages
As shown in the previous chapters and as informed widely by the TV or intenet, damages caused
the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in Sainriku Coast was catastrophic. In this section, brief
outline of the damages will be reviewed.
1) Human and housing
Fig.5 shows human damages by municipality.

The highest ratio of dead and lost people to thepopulation is Otsuchi (9.48%), and the next three are Onagawa (9.44%), Rikuzentakata (9.08%),
Minami-Sanriku (5.66%).

All of these are located at the bottom of narrow bays in Sanriku Coast.

The municipality with the worst number of human damages (3,153 dead and 890 lost) is Ishinomaki
City, where not only many of fishing villages but also the densely populated urban area wereflooded away by up to 10m-high tsumani.
Fig.6 shows the number of completely and half-destroyed houses.

The intensity of earthquake

was so severe and wide this time, the large number of damaged houses appear not only in tsunami
affected coastal area, but also in inland area such as Koriyama City and suburban Sendai.
5But theratio of “completely” destroyed houses are high especially in the coastal region suffered fromsevere damage of tsunami.

Fig.5 Died and missing persons by municipality

Fig.6

Destroyed houses (August,11)
source: National Fire Defense Agency(August,11)
source: National Fire Defense Agency

2) Damages for fishery
Among all industries in tsunami affected regions, fishery and relating marine product industries
got the most devastating damages.

Table 3 and 4 show that the fishery and relating facilities in thethree prefectures were almost completely destroyed.

Especially, Iwate and Miyagi, which arelocated in Sanriku Coast, are (or “were”) one of the most thriving fishery areas in Japan.

Most ofthe fishing ports in this area lost almost all facilities relating to fishery and marine products.
As for marine products processing factories shown in Table 4, about 80% of factories weredestroyed in Iwate and Miyagi, because most of such factories were located near fishing port anddestroyed or flooded away by tsunami.

6Table 3

Damages for fishery and relating facilities in three severely damaged prefectures

Table 4

Damages for marine products factories in three prefectures

3) Damages for manufacturing factories
Not only the fishery and related industries, but also any industries in tsunami affected area
assumed to suffer severe damages. Table 5 shows the manufacturing factories located in tsunami
affected area in three prefectures. More than one thousand factories in total were located there.
Among three prefectures, Miyagi assumed to have the most severe damage, of which ratio to allfactories reach 16.4% in number of factories, and 14.4% in workers, and 21.9% in output value.
In Miyagi prefecture, many of factories were located in the industrial estates developed near port
areas, such as the case of marine product factories’ estates in Kesennuma, Ishinomaki andShiogama, Sendai Port industrial park, and Sendai Airport industrial estate.

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Table 5Iwate
Miyagi

Damages for manufacturing factories in tsunami affected area

number of ratio(%) to number ofoutput value ratio(%) toratio(%) tofactories inallworkers in(billion yen) inall
all factories
tsunamifactories tsunami areatsunami areafactories
164
4.2
3,592
3.6
7,440
2.9
850

16.4

18,43014.4

77,960

21.9

77

1.0

1,692

0.9

5,910

1.0

Fukushima

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (http://www.meti.go.jp/statistics)

7. Reconstruction
Every damaged municipalities in Sanriku Coast published each redevelopment plan by the end of2011.

Each of them basically contains three major tasks; reconstruction of whole infrastructure,

recovery of local business and industries, and creation of disaster preventive community.
there has appeared many difficulties.

But

A case of Onagawa Town will be presented here.

Onagawa Town of which registered population was 12,000 in 2010 located at the south ofSanriku Coast (Fig.1).

Struck by the huge tsunami with the height of 17-23m above sea level,almost entire part of its central part and main port, which faced at the bottom of a narrow bay, wasdestroyed and flooded away (Fig.7).

541 people which is rated 5.4 % of the total population diedor lost, and about 4,300 houses and buildings were destroyed.

Not only the central area, but also

many of the fishery villages were severely destroyed.

Fig.7

Tsunami affected area (bold line) with tsunami height (m)affected area : Geographical Information Authority,

tsunami height: Tsunami Control Center of Tohoku University8

Town’s redevelopment plan was published on September, 2011, containing much of projects tocreate whole town as shown in Table 6.
Table 6

Projects for recovery and redevelopment

They were supposed to be accomplished by 2018, which was divided three periods below;i) period of urgent recovery (2011～12) : provision of temporary shelters, land designation forthe planning, reopen of main port and fish market, restart of aquaculture, construction of temporary
shops and factories etc.
ii) period of construction for infrastructure (2013～15) : development of new town center andresidential estates, ground raising of main port and downtown area etc.
iii) period of completion of redevelopment (2016～18) : completion of new residential area,permanent shops and factories, and all projects to create new Onagawa
Image map of a reborn town center is telling us a hopeful future of Onagawa Town (Fig. 8)

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Fig.8

Image map

(source : ibid)

8. Difficulties and prospects
Difficulties to realize the plan would be many.

At first, how the agreement among various

landowners and inhabitants can be achieved, after deciding to abandon their home places and tomove new places.

In the second, how the huge cost can be raised in order for the people to pay

from their own limited properties.

The third and most urgent difficulty is to provide theemployment opportunities for the people who lost all their living fundamentals.

Without any

earnings, it would be unavoidable for the people to move out of the town before the projects can beachieved.

Though the fishery activities which was main local industry in the town partly resumed

by the end of 2011 (Table 6), it is far limited in comparison with the before.
Every damaged towns and cities share such situation and difficulties.

The author believes that

long-term supports and concerns for the region would be necessary until every community can
finally recover and create alternative living culture enough defensive against cyclically coming
tsunami disaster.

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