Latest news with #IwatePrefecture
Japan Times
2 days ago
- General
- Japan Times
80 years on, Iwate woman recalls naval bombardment
The city of Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture is said to have been the first place on Japan's main island of Honshu to suffer a naval bombardment by the Allied powers during World War II. More than 5,000 shells were fired into the northeastern Japan city, which had a large iron mill, on July 17 and Aug. 9, 1945, killing a total of 782 people, mostly civilians. As the bombardments lasted about two hours on both days, Mutsuko Sano, 94, clearly heard the earth rumbling at a school for girls about 30 kilometers away. Sano was 14 years old when she evacuated with others from her hometown in Kamaishi to the school in the neighboring city of Tono in April 1945. After the second attack, more of Sano's classmates evacuated from Kamaishi. She could do nothing but hold devastated friends who had lost relatives. "I want to tell young people now that natural disasters cannot be avoided, but war can," Sano said. Since Kamaishi had a prisoner-of-war camp, Sano often saw lines of prisoners heading to a mine for work. After the war ended, however, she saw them whistling as they walked through town, a scene that made her fully realize her country's defeat. When Sano returned to Kamaishi with her father, she saw burned ruins everywhere, with the five chimneys of the ironworks, which used to be a symbol of the city, bent miserably. Around Kamaishi Station, there were several craters formed as a result of the bombardments. "It was complete hell," Sano said. "I wish the war had ended earlier." Sano has lived in Kamaishi for 80 years since the end of the war, witnessing the rise and fall of her hometown. The city began to recover in the 1950s, led by its steel and fishery industries, but was again devastated by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. "The city remains deserted now," she said. "Why should we experience such misery again?" Still, she keeps busy working for the town, making her wartime experiences into a booklet and sharing her story through lectures. "People can't resist a tsunami, but war can be avoided," she emphasized. "We must never start a war."
Japan Times
6 days ago
- General
- Japan Times
U.S. Osprey makes emergency landing at Iwate airport
A U.S. Osprey military aircraft made an emergency landing on Thursday in Iwate Prefecture, the latest in a string of mishaps and accidents involving the controversial tilt-rotor plane. The pilot contacted Iwate Hanamaki Airport in the prefecture, saying they wanted to land due to a technical glitch, an official at the airport said. The aircraft landed without incident, and the crew did not request emergency medical assistance, he said. Officials from U.S. Forces Japan could not be reached for immediate comment. Television footage from the airport showed a few uniformed U.S. military personnel standing outside the parked aircraft. National broadcaster NHK also showed a video of the Osprey making a vertical landing at the airport. The Hanamaki airport official said the incident did not impact the operation of the airport. Ospreys can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and rotate their propellers forward to fly like a plane. The aircraft has been involved in accidents and several deadly crashes, including one off southern Japan in 2023 when all eight people on board were killed. The fatal crash prompted the U.S. military to ground the aircraft worldwide. Regional Japanese military personnel were heading to Hanamaki to study the latest incident, a defense official said.
Japan Times
27-06-2025
- Climate
- Japan Times
Western Japan sees earliest end to rainy season on record
Japan's rainy season ended at the earliest date on record in the country's western regions, meteorologists said Friday, as climate change makes global weather patterns less predictable. The rainy season usually lasts from June to July, but for a large swath of the country — from Kyoto to the southern island of Kyushu — it ended roughly three weeks earlier than usual, the Meteorological Agency said. Previous records for the earliest ending to the rainy season in those areas were in early July, logged in the 1960s through the 1990s, the weather agency added. Japan endured its hottest summer on record last year as climate change pushes up temperatures worldwide. Increasingly dry winters have also raised the risk of wildfires. A blaze that broke out in the city of Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture in early March was Japan's worst in over half a century. For the nation's Pacific coast, last winter was the driest since records began in 1946, according to the agency. Strong typhoons have also triggered floods and landslides in recent years. "Currently, in the western regions, we are seeing a strong high-pressure system that is not likely to weaken in the foreseeable future," the agency's meteorologist said on Friday. He said it was not possible to draw a direct link between the current weather conditions and climate change. But a changing climate has been observed "over many years," he added.
