Stephen Harper visits tsunami-devastated town in northeastern Japan
YURIAGE, Japan - Stephen Harper has taken a first-hand look at the devastation caused by an earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan last March.
The prime minister made a stop in the small town of Yuriage, outside of Sendai.
The city of about one million in the country's Miyagi Prefecture was at the centre of last year's disaster, which killed more than 19,000 people.
Over a year later, signs of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami are everywhere.
"It's really quite overwhelming to see the scale of the destruction," Harper said.
"I stand here today, one year later, with profound admiration for those who have fought through adversity and pain to rebuild their lives and this region," Harper said in a statement.
"It epitomizes the resolve, resilience and spirit of the Japanese people.”
Harper toured a junior high school, which lost 14 students and 20 parents, all swept away by the massive wall of water.
Desks, debris, bits of papers with half-completed assignments and colouring are scattered over the floor.
Water-logged books remain on the shelves and the school clock is stopped at 2:46 p.m.
Three beached fishing boats carried in by the wave still sit in a field behind the building.
The surviving students have been relocated to a nearby elementary schools.
Sumio Takahashi, the school's principal, showed Harper around and said it's tough to enter the building.
The two were accompanied by Marshall Ikeda, a Japanese-Canadian teacher and International Co-Operation Minister Bev Oda.
In some areas the wave reached eight kilometres inland.
The only signs of where entire subdivisions once stood were the outlines of foundations in the sea-spoiled soil.
Some homes are being rebuilt in the wasted landscape, but it will be decades before the town recovers.
Harper also met the mayor of Yuriage and laid flowers at a hilltop shrine to express his condolences.
He told officials in the coastal town about 90 kilometres from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant that Canada stood ready to provide further assistance.
Ottawa provided 25,000 thermal blankets and other relief supplies in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Last November, Ottawa, B.C. and the forestry sector announced $4.5 million in support for the Canada-Tohoku Reconstruction Project, which will assist in the reconstruction of schools and elderly care centres
The Canadian embassy in Tokyo is also running a program that allows school kids in the Sendai region the opportunity to come to Canada to learn either French or English.
So far, 100 kids have been selected.
The visit took place as Harper travelled to Seoul, South Korea for a summit on nuclear security.
