The court ruling that ordered the city of Ishinomaki and Miyagi Prefecture to pay ¥1.4 billion in damages to the families of local schoolchildren killed in the tsunami of March 11, 2011, holds schoolteachers and officials responsible to take every step possible to protect children under their care in times of major disaster. The officials' plea that the devastation caused by the massive tsunami that swept the Pacific coastline of Tohoku was well beyond anticipated disaster scenarios — thus beyond their responsibility to respond — was rejected by the court. Just as the Great East Japan Earthquake taught the nation, the ruling tells school authorities in this disaster-prone country to brace for the worst.
Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki was one of the worst-hit public facilities in the disaster five years ago, which left more than 18,000 people dead or missing. The school, located 4 km from the coast, lost 74 of its 108 students and 10 of its 13 teachers and officials in the tsunami that followed the magnitude-9.0 quake.
At issue in the lawsuit filed in 2014 by families of 23 of the children killed was the decision by teachers and officials to stay on the school ground after the quake for nearly 50 minutes before starting to evacuate to higher ground, when they were inundated by the massive tsunami. School officials said the onslaught of the tsunami was unpredictable, given that the school was located outside of the tsunami-risk areas on the hazard map prepared by local authorities and had in fact been designated by the city as an evacuation site. Indeed, some 70 schools in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures that stood outside tsunami-risk areas were hit by the tsunami that day.