Yusaku Yoshida, a 16-year-old high school student in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, has put up a wooden monument on a hill in the town on March 11 so the memory will forever remain of the tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region exactly two years ago.
About 30 townspeople who gathered for the ceremony nodded when they read the monument's inscription: "When a big earthquake occurs, go to an elevated place without returning."
In January, Yoshida mentioned on his Facebook page the idea of "erecting a wooden monument to pass down memories of the tsunami to people 1,000 years from now because (the memories) will be renewed when it is rebuilt every few years."