Aketo Seawall Ruins was added to Your Favorites!
Sanriku Fukkō NP, Iwate
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A 378m-long, 9m-high seawall was overtopped by the 2011 tsunami, whose first wave here was estimated at 17.1m. The backwash shattered it and flung an 8-ton concrete wave-breaker from 200m offshore onto the beach.
Though the beachfront pine forest was wiped out, 3 broadleaf trees in Aketo’s inland park grove caught tsunami debris. Researchers documented a 12m-long, 3m-high log-and-rubble pile formed around them.
Long before concrete barriers, Aketo Beach had enormous iron salt kettles. An Edo-period diary by a Morioka-domain samurai records a large salt kiln here, and salt-making continued into the prewar years.
Aketo’s currents made it poor for swimming, but not for fun: before 2011, students from Nippon Sport Science University and local residents held beach-volleyball tournaments here. Campgrounds and sports grounds also filled the shore.
Rather than clear the wreckage, Tanohata preserved 221m of the old seawall in 3 sections. Crews anchored collapsed concrete and reinforced standing sections, leaving the break itself visible as a disaster memorial.
Completed in 2017, Aketo’s replacement seawall stands 12m high and sits farther inland than the old one. A prefectural road runs along its top, while the shattered original remains nearby as a record of the tsunami.
