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Onagawa plan a pipe dream, author says

A Nelson man who has just returned from Japan fears a $3 billion reconstruction plan for the tsunami-stricken town of Onagawa is nothing more than a “hallucination.”
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A Nelson man who has just returned from Japan fears a $3 billion reconstruction plan for the tsunami-stricken town of Onagawa is nothing more than a “hallucination.”

John Craig, a self-styled Japanthropologist, came home this week after a month touring the country with his new book, Seen Through a Foreigner’s Eyes: An Earthquake, which he says is “pretty pointed” in its criticism of how the March earthquake was handled.

Craig first visited Onagawa a few weeks after the disaster, and says some things are actually worse now. Although a lot of scrap has been cleared from the streets, it has “clearly delineated the vast swaths of nothing where houses had been. And the large, still very misshapen buildings were much more clearly defined. The contrast was very macabre.”

About 600 people remain sheltered in cardboard partitions in a gym, compared to 800 when he first visited. However, there is little incentive for them to leave. As soon as they move into new prefabricated housing, they cease to receive government support.

“Once you’re in them, you have to get your own food, which is a long way away,” Craig says. “I saw some of those structures, which are generally situated far from everybody because that’s where it’s cheapest to build them. They’re really very primitive.”

Instead, he says, the homeless watch TV, receive free meals, and get used to it. They want money and expect the government to pay.

“That attitude is not the kind I believe is required for the literal rebuilding. You need a pioneer attitude. You need to [say] what can I do to rebuild my community? But there is nothing like that... I fully expect on my next trip in October, there will still be 600 people.”

Onagawa is the first municipality in its prefecture to draw up a reconstruction plan. However, Craig thinks the price tag — over 20 times the town’s annual budget to finance land development and community relocation to higher ground — makes it unlikely to win support from the debt-laden government.

“Three billion to reconstruct a small town in the hinterland of Japan is a complete hallucination,” he says. “There’s no way they’re going to get it as far as I can see. This is cognitive dissonance in the extreme on the part of city officials.”

He was also disappointed to discover the town hall has been rebuilt at a cost of over $2 million, as he believes the makeshift office used in the wake of the disaster was more than adequate: “You don’t need a brand new aluminum building. But they were very proud of it.”

At least Onagawa still has hope, he says, even if it is just a pipe dream. Other coastal communities even worse off have given up altogether. More than money, he feels the affected people need counsellors who can get them out of their “poor me” mode.

Onagawa’s fishing industry has been destroyed, he adds, and while part of the reconstruction plan includes canneries, they have to look at other ways of revitalizing the economy — perhaps using Nelson’s example and expertise.

“My rather outrageous idea was since it looks a lot like Nelson and there are a lot of mountains around, they could actually turn Onagawa into a mountain biking mecca,” he says. “They need new ideas. There are none. There is simply money: give it to me and somehow we’ll come back... They just don’t have the imagination to consider other options.”

As for the nearly $40,000 Nelson has raised for Onagawa, officials declined to suggest how it should be spent, preferring to let people here decide (see related story, below).

Onagawa is home to a monument commemorating Nelson pilot Robert Hampton Gray, who died there in World War II. The town has also sent student delegations here for several years running.

Nelson's official Japanese sister city of Izushi escaped the earthquake and tsunami unharmed, although a local group headed there was forced to cancel their trip.

Trafalgar postcards arrive in Japan

Several hundred postcards with messages from Trafalgar Middle School students have been distributed to Onagawa residents.

Wendy Lacroix, part of the local relief committee, says the cards were mailed about two weeks ago to Michael Luzia, a Canadian teacher living and working there.

Luzia passed them out to students and “anybody he felt needed a bit of a boost... They were very grateful for them.”

Lacroix says all the kids who visited Nelson last fall received them, but they weren’t the only ones. Although she didn’t count them, she figures there were 200 to 300 cards, which contained “pretty sincere” messages of hope.

The front of the cards featured pictures taken by Trafalgar teacher Madeleine Guenette.

The city covered the postage.

Still no decision on fund

Nelson’s Onagawa fund has reached close to $40,000, including the city’s $10,000 contribution — but there’s still no final decision on how to spend it.

Lacroix says they’re leaning toward scholarships at Selkirk College and sports equipment for schools. A meeting later this month may help decide.

“It would be nice to have a legacy of sports equipment or a plaque that says we helped them out in their time of need and mainly we were looking to do things for their kids,” she says.

At the same time, they’re considering buying a set of Japanese drums to present to the town.