Remains of 6-year-old Japanese girl lost in 2011 tsunami returned to family
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Ms Chiyumi Yamane cuddling the small urn containing the partial remains of her daughter Natsuse.
PHOTO: THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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MIYAKO, Iwate – The family of a six-year-old girl who had been missing since the tsunami triggered by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake finally received her remains on Oct 16, 14 years and seven months after the water swept her away.
“You tried so hard. Thank you for coming back to us,” Ms Chiyumi Yamane said as she tightly cuddled the small urn containing the partial remains of her daughter Natsuse.
Ms Yamane, 49, her husband Tomonori Yamane, 52, and their son Daiya, 26, visited Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi prefecture, to receive Natsuse’s remains from the police who worked to identify her
“We’ve kept you waiting for a long time,” said Minami-Sanriku police station chief Hiroshi Kano as he handed a tearful Ms Yamane her daughter’s remains in the container wrapped with a cloth.
It had been a long wait for Ms Yamane and her family.
On the day of the earthquake, Natsuse was swept away by the tsunami while at home with her grandmother, who miraculously survived.
Immediately after the quake, the family searched temporary morgues and other places, looking for clues and clinging to the possibility that she might still be alive.
After six months, they had to come to terms with the likelihood that Natsuse was dead, that there was no chance that she had survived and someone was looking after her. The family subsequently filed a report of the girl’s death with their local town office.
Always smiling, Natsuse loved cats and playing outside. Every June on her birthday, her family counted the age she would have reached and offered her favourite cream-filled cake at the family’s Buddhist altar.
But as the anniversary of the disaster approached every year, they began to fear that she might never come back to them.
On Sept 30, when the family had nearly given up hope of finding her body, Mr Yamane’s mobile phone rang.
It was a call from the Miyagi prefectural police informing him that Natsuse’s remains had been found. Mr Yamane said it was “a miracle”.
In February 2023, a construction worker volunteering to clean nearby coastlines discovered what eventually proved to be Natsuse’s remains in Minami-Sanriku, about 100km from her home in Yamada, Iwate prefecture.
The remains, consisting of part of a jawbone with some teeth attached, were identified to be those of Natsuse through mitochondrial DNA analysis.
“The missing piece of our family has finally been put in place, and the clock that had stopped has started ticking again,” Ms Yamane said.
“We can live together as four once again.”
The family went home together, carefully holding on to Natsuse. THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
