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Friday, February 12, 2016

Unclaimed Backpacks

Randoseru: Japan’s Ubiquitous Backpack

I read a rather sad story on Japan Times online. Almost 3,000 backpacks that washed ashore after the earthquake and tsumani in March 2011 will be incinerated. If ever you see school children in Japan, you will see them carrying box-y leather backpacks. It’s almost like it is part of the child.

The backpacks, musical instruments, and other items were originally kept at the site of the former Yuriage School after being found in the tsumani disaster debris. Regular viewings of the items were held in an attempt to find the owners or their families. The city has now decided to incinerate the items after almost five years because of a lack of interest and lack of space.  The current storage space will be demolished.

About 240,000 photographs that were recovered have been digitized to preserve the images.

3 comments:

  1. That is very sad, I can understand the lack of storage space though. They are very nice looking back packs, much better than what we have here. Wonderful the digitized photos will be kept.

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  2. This is so very sad. The thought of the disaster and then even more the fact they are unclaimed. What a tragedy. I am blessed to never had to experience something as tragic as this

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