The last one of the "stone monuments of life" that conveys the earthquake was completed Miyagi Onagawa-cho

The last one of the "stone monuments of life" that children at that time in Onagawa Town, Miyagi Prefecture built over 10 years in more than 20 places in the town to convey the memories and lessons of the Great East Japan Earthquake to 1000 years ahead. It was completed and unveiled.

Onagawa Town, Miyagi Prefecture, was hit by a tsunami with a maximum height of 14.8 meters due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, killing more than 800 people, or 8% of the townspeople.

Students who enrolled in a local junior high school in the year of the earthquake talked about the earthquake in the first grade social class and tried to convey the memories and lessons of the earthquake until 1000 years ahead, the best of 21 tsunamis in the town. We planned to build a "stone monument for Onagawa life" near the destination.

By the time I was in the third grade, I raised about 10 million yen through fund-raising activities and completed the first stone monument on the premises of Onagawa Junior High School.

With the cooperation of the stone company, we continued to build the building, and on the 21st, about 10 years after the plan, the final 21st unit was completed and unveiled.

At the unveiling ceremony, seven graduates who played a central role in the activity and many other supporters gathered to lower the curtain of the stone monument with a countdown.

All the stone monuments were engraved with the message of 575 that the students at that time thought, and the stone monument that was unveiled on the 21st was the same as the one that was first built eight years ago. It was written as "Great Earthquake".

It was written by a student who had a dream of becoming a minerallogist at the time, and expresses the feeling that he kept his dream even if the stones he had collected were washed away.

The stone monuments built so far have been registered as a natural disaster monument of the Geographical Survey Institute, and have become a base for tradition, such as visiting junior high schools outside the prefecture on school trips.

Tomohiro Suzuki (22), a graduate of Onagawa Junior High School and a university student, said, "I'm glad that all the 21 units we were aiming for were built, but I think it's important to continue to convey them through the stone monument. As the number of children who have not experienced the earthquake is increasing, I want many people to feel the importance of disaster prevention through their activities. "