ISHINOMAKI, Japan—A mile-long tunnel through the mountains separates devastated fishing neighborhoods from the rest of Japan, and from the world to which they once belonged.
Masanobu Endo, 47, appeared at the mouth of the tunnel near the center of Ishinomaki, a city of 175,000 people in northeastern Japan. From here, Makiyama tunnel cuts through the mountain toward the coastal section of Ishinomaki—an area that included, when Mr. Endo was last here, the bustling fishing neighborhood where he lived, just blocks from the beach, with his wife, son and daughter.
Mr. Endo, a steel worker, was on a job some 100 miles away on March 11 when Japan was shaken by one of the century's biggest earthquakes and its coast battered by tsunami waves. Workers from the seafront factories in his neighborhood converged on the tunnel, their hundreds of cars jamming and swallowed by the tsunami, witnesses say.It took days for the military to clear the tunnel. Now, braving the tunnel on foot has become one of the only ways for people to reach Ishinomaki's port area, which includes the neighborhood of Sakanamachi, or "Fish Town," a blue-collar district of sea-front factories, fishing operations and warehouses. What started as a trickle of people coming through the tunnel has turned into a stream.
"I figured I had waited enough for things to settle down," Mr. Endo said Thursday as he set off into the tunnel, only dimly aware of the destruction on the other side, to search for his family.Makiyama tunnel is pitch dark in parts amid electricity blackouts, and lacks sidewalks because it was never meant for pedestrians. A cold wind blows through. With so many cars lost in the disaster and hitchhiking socially unacceptable in Japan, even in a crisis, many have walked for miles before they reach the tunnel.
Some of the people traveling through find their loved ones. Others find they have lost them. Some pass in the other direction, saying they'll leave the devastated areas for good.
"You can see the light at the end, but it takes surprisingly long to get to it," said one person who had been through.
Eiko Goto, 51, set into the tunnel after a visit to the devastated coastal area, elated. "My only sister, she was alive!" she said after making a six-hour walk to reach the area. "She can't swim, but the wave somehow put her on top of a Seven-Eleven."
Not far behind her, pushing a bicycle with big boxes strapped on the front basket and back, was fisherman Kosuke Suto, 26. He was wearing his only remaining outfit, the rubber overalls with attached rubber boots and rubber gloves he wears to work. When the waves hit he was on the water on his company's fishing boat, so he was safe. He returned home to find the bodies of his parents.
"Since my parents and house are gone, I have to get out," he said, as he headed away from the leveled blocks of homes. He wasn't sure where he would go. "My sister lives in Tokyo. I guess she can send me some money."
Over the years, Ishinomaki has been know for its oysters, whaling harpoons and a giant replica of a 17th-century galleon. Today it is trying to revive local enthusiasm about the city with a museum dedicated to a local comic artist known as "The Emperor of Manga," and action hero statues along some of its streets. Through the tunnel from Ishinomaki's center are the fishing neighborhoods, Ishinomaki's blue-collar section.
It was here that Mr. Endo, the steel worker, emerged after his walk through the tunnel, startled. The neighborhood where he grew was piled with dirt, lumber, furniture.He saw a high-school friend and his wife. "You haven't gone home yet?" the wife asked, grimacing. "Where do you live?"
He responded that he lived in Sakaida, a neighborhood closer to the water. She held back a gasp. It was one of the worst-hit areas.
As Mr. Endo approached his home, he saw a small car sticking out of the window of the neighborhood laundromat. The roof of a house blocked the lane he was planning to take home. In a nearby gas station, the pumps had been pushed flat to the ground, away from the sea, like dominoes.
As he took it all in, he nearly stepped on a body, covered with a blanket. Visible was the hand of an elderly man, holding Buddhist prayer beads. Mr. Endo started to walk faster. He pulled out one of his last cigarettes.
"That's my house," he said, cutting across a muddy field.
Wedged up against his home, and blocking his way to his front door, was someone else's massive blue roof. On top of the roof, laying on its side, was a silver minivan.
Mr. Endo charged over the roof, slipping and falling twice. He jumped into a side window, its glass missing, and ran through his two-story home.
His living room was filled with garbage and sludge that left a high-water mark 15 feet up the inside walls. He stumbled out of the window, falling again.
"There's no one there," he said. He headed for the grade school of his son and daughter, the most likely place his family would have gone.
There, in the gym of the Katsuma Grade School, he found them. They were sitting on a blanket, playing Uno.
His children were at school when the earthquake hit. The rest of his extended family—his wife and mother-in-law, his brother and wife—all rushed up to the school in their cars. Their cars, which they had parked below the school, were swept away. The family lived.
On Friday evening, Mr. Endo sat in his new home—the corner of the gymnasium where his children were taught how to play basketball.
In a country where the dead and missing numbered 17,503 on Friday—with still more, it is believed, not yet even reported missing—Mr. Endo's story was a happy one. He had been spared the worst pain of losing his family. Still, he reflected on his new reality: no home, no car, no food, no clean clothes and no confidence that his neighborhood would bounce back.
"The future," he said. "It looks dark."
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