Haunted by Spirits of the Tsunami

Salt water does not destroy things like regular water, does you know, stains unlike those from fresh water the scent of the ocean that it leaves behind. But kilometers inland plants, houses, roads, and schools completely destroyed. This only salt water could have done. The man in uniform was not the only one searching through the area. Had he been the only one trying to decide what to do or where to go next, he would have been paralyzed with a destruction all around him. Fortunately, he had been assigned a specific area and very specific things to look for, signs of life. Of that there was many thing goodness. People have a strange way of surviving. But just like the heartbeats that surrounded him hidden in the rubble, they themselves getting up and going forward. Some were warm and safe and solid, and were also others who had long been swallowed by the sea. And so he made his way down another area that used to be a street, and passed by another that used to be a playground, seaweed where it should not have been, and the salty taste in the air, this time a bit too far from the shore. He got in the vehicle, one of the few that had been assigned. As his partner got on the passenger seat, two and a half hours had gone by him. They had gotten their job done, but overall there would be so much more work to do that others would have to carry on with, and so they made their way closer to the coast, but away from what remained of the roads and houses. As the engine powered on ahead, they stopped scanning the area, since there could impossibly anything out there so far away. It was then when the man of the passenger seat stretched out his hand in silence, signaling the driver to pulled over. As he pointed out into the devastated areas. Out in the distance, but not too far that she wasn't able to be seen, was a woman. She wore a scarlet dress, gracefully walking away but alongside the path the car had carved for itself. The driver stopped, determined to turned around in her direction to find her. Who was she? Despite his best efforts and searching in the area continuously, she was now nowhere to be seen, but away from roads and houses and walking along by herself. Of A tale of the Woman in the Scarlet Dress was one of the many that developed after one of the most tragic natural disasters in modern history, one that still has to be processed by the family members and friends of the victims along with the survivors. In fact, this is a strange phenomenon that has been happening, and it has even triggered the creation of a full length book about this very topic. Join me today as we uncover the convincing stories of those who claim that the people who perished through the tsunami in Japan in twenty eleven are not gone. Sightings and other encounters with ghosts of the tsunami. My name is Edward, and here was a dark memory. It was two forty six pm March eleventh, twenty eleven, just another aimingly normal day in Japan. Workers and the skyscrapers in the city went to work, Farmers were out in the fields, and students were completing their schoolwork for the day. And it was then when an earthquake of eight point nine magnitude struck off the coast of Japan that Friday, just two hundred and thirty one miles northeast of Tokyo. The earthquake rattled fifteen point two miles deep. In fact, this earthquake was the fifth largest recorded in the world since the year nineteen hundred, and it broke the record as the largest one to ever hit Japan. The warnings were out through the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that went all the way from Japan to the West coast of the United States. In more than fifty countries, tsunami alerts were urging people to head to higher ground immediately. Within one hour, the water s start at reaching land in Japan, Waves of approximately thirty feet high were reaching the shore. It was seven thirty nine PM when the unfortunate news of casualties started coming in. According to Kyoto News Service reports, at least thirty two people had been reported dead. At eight fifteen pm, the Japanese government declared a state of emergency for a nuclear power plant near Sendai, which was located one hundred and eighty miles from Tokyo. By nine thirty five pm, four nuclear plants had been shut down due to the urgency and the potential disaster that the nuclear plants could cause. This was taken very seriously, but the situation only seemed to be getting worse. By ten twenty nine PM, the cooling systems at Fukushima nuclear plants were being reported at not working authorities were preparing for the worst case scenario. Those who were one and a half miles from the planet were required to evacuate tragically. By eleven forty PM, the death toll had risen to ninety three dead and up to an estimated seventy thousand people were evacuated to shelters. Rio Kinoya has a detailed account on in an article written for National Geographic. I'll tell you a bit of his account. Rio was at work when the earthquake rattled the building. Word around the workplace was that the tsunami had hit and was already passing, so he made his way home, which was about half a mile away from the coast. When he arrived, he was able to see something he had never seen before. Along the shoreline. The ocean was on fire with smoke coming out. But it didn't take long for the rumble of the powerful ocean to make it clear that what he was seeing was a mist. As the waves started to destroy things that got in his path, the people from the house thought it would be better to run, but it was too late. They made their way to the top of the structure and they were waiting for it to pass. At first, they thought that the house would hold up. The currents were too strong, and soon the house began to crack like soap bubbles going down the drain, Real fell into the water. Soon he was separated from his family. One of the members was being pulled away by the current inland, but he was going out faster and faster toward the ocean. He stretched his arms out to look out for anything to hold onto, and that's when he found a drower case floating as he hopped on. People around him were being dragged out into the ocean, and fate he's unsure about. Eventually he was able to grab onto debris by a fallen tree, and he was able to stand and run toward rescuers who had been ordered to help those who lived by the nuclear power plants. For years, debrief in the tsunami was being washed up in beaches all around the world, even in North American countries. About one hundred and ninety nine billion dollars in financial damages were reported. The water eventually flooded two hundred and seventeen square miles, and its waves reached up to one hundred and twenty eight feet were inlet for about six miles. Unfortunately, As of December twenty twenty one, the death tolls were at nineteen thousand, seven hundred and forty seven people dead and over two thousand, five hundred people still reported missus. After the earthquake, the Meteorological agency of the country was criticized for underestimating the size of the wave, but for some the physical tragedies were only a part of the damage that would be done by the tsunami. In fact, tales of ghosts apparitions started being reported all around the country. These accounts and more coming up right after this. It had been a few months after the tsunami now and life was trying to come back to normal. During the reconstruction, family sometimes completely gone, with elders being left on their own with nobody to care for them. Had to find solutions for them, but still life had to continue like a show that we cannot leave. Soon. People were having to go to work and continue their daily lives just like before. Such was the case for one of the taxi drivers. He saw a woman waving him down and he pulled over. She entered the passenger's seat in the back, shut the door and stayed quiet. The driver looked at the rear room mirror and tried to find her eyes waiting instructions as to where to go to the Miyagi district, she said in a quiet voice. The taxi driver looked back and then to the road again, but had only gone a couple of meters forward when he realized that Miyagi had been destroyed. He looked back at the woman and explained this to her. Her eyes opened wide and stunned, she replied. Drivers connected people to one another. And another account mentions the story of a man who looked to be around twenty years old wearing a thick coat. The driver saw him standing on the side of the road just as the late afternoon sky had been turning orange. He promptly pulled over to pick him up. There was something strange about him, but the driver did not question much about it and began to drive. It was a short drive, but the sun had started to set as they were driving, and by the time that he arrived at the destination, the sun had settled in for the night. He pulled over and waited for him to move in the back seat, but to his surprise, there was no movement. He turned around the back seat it was completely empty. Another tale that can be found both through document entries on the subject or on shows of unsolved mysteries. Is that of a person known as Takashi Ono. Takashi lived miles away from where the tsunami happened. One day, he got in his car and drove over to see the damage with his own eyes, but he could not believe the devastation and the loss of life he had witnessed. It did not leave him. He was so shocked by the whole thing that soon his life would change. He got back home and was greeted by his family, but Takashi stayed quiet, like something was hiding deep inside his mind. He was called over for dinner with his family and he ate. Then he had some tea. After that he had a can of beer, and it was then when everything started. He began rolling around the ground making noises that sounded like an animal. His family was shaken up and could not understand what was happening. He then ran out into the field and started rolling around in the mud. Yet he doesn't remember any of this. When morning came, his family explained what had happened, but he had no recollection. However, for three more days he talked in a guttural Way threatened to hurt members of the family and kept talking about the dead. His family was obviously terrified and had come up with solutions, so they convinced him to go over to a priest who recited the Buddhist sutras to drive out the spirits. He started feeling better after that. The story I just mentioned is actually a part of an Unsolved Mysteries episode from Netflix, for they go into more detail on what happened with Ono. In fact, a journalists from the Times of London based in Tokyo, Richard Lloyd Perry, wrote a book called Ghosts of the Tsunami where he told many of these stories that he discovered through his interviews. There was one of an old neighbor who would show up randomly at her friends' homes, one who was known to leave a salt water stain on the cushion where she was sitting. But the episode on the ghost of the Tsunami was not free from controversy. You see, the people of Japan are known to be very spiritual, with rituals and habits that people from other regions would do in their own ways. For example, some people are still writing to their loved ones that they lost to those that were never recovered. So when the producers of Unsolved Mystery started their own research, they decided to take a closer look at Okawa Elementary School where seventy five students lost their lives, and it was to that location that the mother of a student from there went along with the psychic. The psychic told her that the children were happy with some of the decorations that the mother had placed there, but along with that came a sinister image. The psychic then told her that some of the kids were stuck in the spot between life and death, and that the dead were crawling on the ground near the school. An article written by Lauren Puckett pop for a Cosmopolitan went on to describe that some of them were stuck in the water, covered in mud and swallowing the dirty water and terrible suffering, and all this came from a quote from the mother, as she described to the author of the Ghosts of the Tsunami. That same mother also spoke to another medium named Sumi, told her another story that the parents might think about finding their children, but they don't need to go back home. They are already home, and they are already in a very good place. There was definitely a much kinder response to a grieving mother. Scientists claim that sightings and possessions are happening as a response from post traumatic stress syndrome. Sociologist Kayoshi Kannibishi, who specializes in disaster firmly stated that they are not a believer in ghosts. When you take a look at an episode like that, or learn about the many experiences people were having by reading the book, you realize that the more you look into it, you seem to gain more questions and answers, and perhaps even begin to believe a little bit more in life after death. Disasters such as the tsunami in Japan and those that happen around the world leave enormous gashes in the souls of those who survive. Families and friends are one of the toughest events to process for anybody, If anything, having the community that also went through such pain can at least offer some comfort in knowing that they will be understood and can come up with ways to cope together. This was definitely one of the tougher episodes to produce due to the tragedies that were described. May the loved ones of the victims find peace. This episode of A Dark Memory was researched by Medel Inguera and produced by me Edwin Kovarujaes. If there's a topic that you want me to talk about, please send me a message. I'll leave my email in the description of this episode. Don't forget a tap follow in order to stay up to date with upcoming weekly episodes. Thank you very much for listening. Soon