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Kuni Takahashi for msnbc.com
Fumie Sato, 63, and her sister Hisae, 65, sit in front of a shrine to their younger sister, Yukie in Fumie's house in Minamisanriku, Japan on Feb 4, 2012.
Kuni Takahashi
Fumie Sato, 62, stands on remains the house where her mother and sister lived in MInamisanriku, Japan on March 31, 2011 after a massive earthquake and tsunami swept the house away.
Kuni Takahashi reports:
Fumie Sato, 63, and her sister Hisae, 65, still mourn their younger sister, Yukie who was killed when the tsunami swept over the Japanese coastal town of Minanisanriku on March 11, 2011, as she was trying to save her mother-in-law, who also died.
“I can’t stop blaming myself for not going with her when Yukie went down the hill to help her mother-in-law," Fumie Sato said. "My regret will never disappear. I just want to say that I am sorry when I see her in heaven.”
“I realized that there isn’t always a tomorrow. A few hours or even a few minutes from now, we could suddenly be gone. So I think we should live better but it’s hard…especially for the ones left behind in sorrow.”
The Satos found Yukie’s body five days after the tsunami virtually erased Minamisanriku, population 17,666, from the map, leaving 565 townspeople dead and 310 missing (as of Feb. 22). Fumie's house was spared because it was located on a hill, but both of her sisters’ homes were washed away.
“Yukie died in March in the snow, then spring came, then the summer,' she said. "Now it’s winter again. All buildings in town are gone and my family has changed but the seasons turn as usual as if nothing happened.”
Her older sister Hisae added, “When I saw the rice crop turned yellow last fall, I realized that the time has passed. Until then, it was always March 11th inside of me.”
- See our previous story on Fumie Sato published last year following the tsunami.
- More from Kuni Takahashi on the survivors of the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
- Slideshow: Then and Now - the 2011 Japan tsunami in pictures
Kuni Takahashi, a photojournalist based in Mumbai, returned to his native Japan in 2011 shortly after the earthquake and tsunami. He recently revisited some of the people he met there— as well as some of the people that msnbc.com profiled in its After the Wave series -- to find out how they were doing nearly a year after the devastating natural disaster.
Kuni Takahashi for msnbc.com
Photos of Yukie Sato at her sister's house in Minamisanriku, Japan on Feb 4, 2012. Yukie died after the tsunami struck the town on March 11, 2011 while she was trying to save her mother-in-law, who also died.
Kuni Takahashi for msnbc.com
A mountain of debris topped with snow in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan on Feb 26, 2012.
Leave a Comment:
My heart still weep's for those affected by this historic natural disaster... For the People of Japan, We as God's children know that He has promised a way to heal through Him.
God Bless all of you!!!
I am so sad for all the people of Japan that was effected by this terrible tsunami. May the Lord bless you and take away some of your pain.
My heart is heavy with sadness still for the victims of the March 11, 2011 quake. My prayers are
with the survivors. I only pray that nothing is done to generate a quake of such monumental proportions
here in America! There was a map commissioned by the U.S. Navy, the day after the big Japan quake, that predicts just such an "un-natural" disaster here in the Midwest. I pray that it is not true!
disaster in the Midwest. Hopefully not everything we find on the internet is true!
I don't pretend to know the impact that such devastation leaves on a person. I pray that they will soon pick up the pieces and somehow try to create a new life and trust that God has a better future in store for them. This article left me with a very humble feeling inside. I've only lost two loved ones and I know how empty their loss left me. I can't imagine having your entire village and family and friends wiped out in a blink of an eye. That would take an immense amount of faith to hold it together. God bless them all!