Since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011, the majority of post offices forced to close in the area have now resumed operations, thanks to the resolve of local delivery workers and their ambition to never stop providing mail services.
The disaster caused the temporary closure of 159 post offices, after they were destroyed or washed away. But of those, 120 had been reopened by last year. Many postmasters, who, as delivery carriers, braved traveling through the rubble to deliver mail following the disaster, are now acquiring qualifications as disaster management specialists.
Following the massive quake, Keita Sasaki, a mail carrier at the Onagawa Post Office in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, loaded mail and address books onto a delivery vehicle and fled to higher ground as a 14.8-meter tsunami engulfed the town and demolished the station building. His home in the city of Ishinomaki was also washed away.