Shin Saito, a junior high school teacher in Kamaishi, still has nightmares about the day he and his students had to desperately dash to higher ground as tsunami crashed into Iwate's coast, barely managing to escape the terrifying waves.
"My nightmares start with me standing in the school grounds and the earthquake striking. During my dreams, somehow I know that they're dreams but I still have to run and escape," said Saito, a 39-year-old English teacher at Kamaishi East Junior High School.
"I'm forced to relive the whole experience vividly, even things like the cold weather and the hunger I felt afterward, and how petrified I was. . . . So when I wake up, I'm exhausted," he told The Japan Times in late February.