Blogs from the Coastal Structures Team - Tohoku, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 - page 77

On the way to our next stop, we took a quick lunch of ramen. The reconstruction
activities in the tsunami-affected area mean that hotels are full of workers and
volunteers, and restaurants are only now starting to reopen. Often, the choices are
quite limited, but we were happy to have something to eat and even got to choose
between plain or pork ramen. As we finished lunch, the weather was lifting and a
steady wind was picking up.
As at Noda and Omoto, we saw extensive evidence of scour on the lee side of the
overtopped structure sections and removal and transport of precast concrete wall
sections. We spent some time at this port inspecting a bridge deck that had been lifted
off its piers by an incoming wave while Lesley Ewing and Dr. Takahashi gave an
interview to a reporter from a local paper, the Yomiuri Shimbun.
South of Taro, Miyako City occupies an inner harbor of Miyako Bay that sustained
inundation levels of eight to nine meters. We stopped briefly to observe a breakwater
that had been partially destroyed by the tsunami before continuing to Kenohama
which lies at the end of a long inlet 10 km from the mouth of Miyako Bay. The
tsunami barrier at this location has seven 10 meter high gates which were overtopped
by about 2 meters during the event. Although the barrier sustained little damage, the
overtopping flow caused damage inland, flooding the buildings upstream and
removing a section of the nearby railway.
Figure A.5 Dr. Takahashi and Kojiro Suzuki of PARI (at left and right)
brief the ASCE survey team at Miyako Port. (Source: Catherine Petroff)
On the way to our last survey location, we passed through the town of Yamada,
where inundation levels were eight to nine meters high. Another PARI member of our
survey team, Yoshitaka Matsuzaki, whose specialty is oil spill response, hails from