On a chilly Saturday morning, Hirokazu Murano and other postal workers scooped up debris and mud from a 120-year-old house in the isolated coastal area in north-eastern Japan that was flattened by a tsunami one year ago. Murano and 70 others came to the community of 80 residents, where many were swept away, to do volunteer work, taking two night buses from a Tokyo suburb after the end of their shifts on Friday.
Community leader Hikoichi Ishimori said residents were grateful for the help, especially because few young people live in the rural area. "Volunteers do onerous work and give special attention to details," while workers dispatched by the local government remove debris with heavy machinery, Ishimori said. Murano knows his way around the remote areas on the Oshika Peninsula, 350kilometres north-east of Tokyo, because he has organised "volunteer tours" by postal workers every month since July to help clean up in the aftermath of the disaster.
"We've realised there are still so many things to do" since the March 11 disaster, he said. Murano and his colleageues were among more than 1 million volunteers who flocked to the north-east after the disaster that left more than 15,800 dead and about 3,300 missing.
According to the Japanese Council of Social Welfare, the number of those who volunteered through municipalities in the region had reached 930,000 as of mid-February. But many others took part through citizens groups, so the actual number was believed to be much higher, civic leaders said. "I've learned there are so many people who want to be of service," Murano said.
Myu Nishikawa, who works at a post office in Yokohama, joined Murano's tour in November. "I wanted to volunteer if there is something I can do," she said. When she was a schoolgirl, Nishikawa lived near Kobe in western Japan, the area struck by a magnitude-7.3 quake in January 1995. That experience made her more aware of the social contribution made by volunteers and she took part in some charity drives.
After delays in government relief operations following the Kobe quake, which killed more than 6,400 people, hundreds of thousands of citizens rushed to the scene to do volunteer work, unprecedented in a country where there was no tradition of volunteerism.
Since then, volunteer groups and other non-profit organisations have been established across the country. But some people still view activists and citizens groups as anti-government in the once-feudal society. Murano too was already involved in the community in Yokohama "because that is one of the basic principles of my work as postmaster," he said.
Ken Horikawa, leader of Open Japan Kizuna, an Ishinomaki-based volunteer group, said it had welcomed people from home and abroad. "On several occasions, we had more volunteer workers from abroad than Japanese. Locals were pleasantly surprised because they had never seen so many non-Japanese people in this town before," Horikawa said.
Junko Yokota and her husband Ryosuke joined in June as first-time volunteer, spurred by the biggest quake they had experienced, she said. Since then, they have made a trip to the disaster zone every month to help out. The couple often decided to do volunteer work in the little-known hardest-hit areas to remove debris and mud.
"Coming back, we were so shocked to see life in Tokyo is so different from situations there, which are far from over," Junko said. In mid-February, the Yokotas were back in Ishinomaki once again, this time to provide rice to elderly people in temporary housing.
Most of the elderly have been separated from relatives and friends since the disaster and they need someone who they can talk to, Horikawa said. "Some people think volunteer workers are no longer needed in the disaster zone" after debris was removed, he said. "We're also working to help care for the emotional and spiritual needs of disaster victims, a very important part."