Coastal Walking Trail in Japan’s Tohoku Region Through Earthquake-Affected Towns Links Locals, Hikers

The Yomiuri Shimbun

21:05 JST, March 23, 2026

The Michinoku Coastal Trail is a long walking path along the Pacific coast that spans four prefectures in the Tohoku region. Nearby residents welcome hikers from Japan and abroad and share about the beauty of the surrounding nature as well as lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

They show tourists an emergency staircase that saved the lives of children and ruins of houses swept away by tsunami in the hopes of raising disaster preparedness awareness.

Near a trail section in the Okirai district in the town of Sanriku in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, sits a collection of colorfully painted single-story houses, where the intricately indented coastline creates a beautiful shore. Built with debris from the 2011 earthquake, the houses serve as a museum complex preserving memories of the disaster.

Waichiryo Katayama, 74, who was running a construction company in the neighborhood, opened the facility in 2012, using his own money. The facility is named Shiome, which means a junction between two currents. The name also reflects Katayama’s wish for the houses to become a place for gathering, as the sea off the Sanriku coast — which include the coast the town faces — is a meeting point of two major currents, the Oyashio Current and the Black Current, resulting in one of the richest fishing grounds in the world.

What most draws the eye is an emergency staircase, now used as a roof for one of the houses. The tsunami 15 years ago claimed 88 lives in the district, but about 80 people, including students of the former Okirai Elementary School, escaped to safety using this staircase to evacuate from the second floor of the school building to a road leading to higher ground. Set to be discarded, Katayama took ownership of the staircase with the aim of “preserving it for future generations as something that played a significant role in saving many lives.”

Connecting elderly residents and hikers, the houses have become a place for locals to speak out about their experiences in the disaster.

Last year, Katayama was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

“I don’t know how long I can go on working, but I’d like to keep relaying lessons learned from the disaster while creating a lively atmosphere,” he said, looking straight ahead.

Katy Shina, 41, from Australia serves as a guide for Three Goats, a company in Morioka operating tours for foreigners. After studying and working in Japan, she moved to Iwate Prefecture in 2012, the year after the earthquake.

The tours introduce the Tohoku region’s nature and history while also offering programs to meet local people affected by the disaster. More than 100 tourists from the United States, Australia and other countries have taken part annually. What Shina cares most strongly about is to let them know about “the present.”

“There are things I can do because I am a foreigner,” Shina stressed.

Nobuo Togashi, 61, of Minami-Sanriku in Miyagi Prefecture, offers hikers free room and board. He moved to the town two years ago after becoming fascinated with the Michinoku Coastal Trail. With traces of the quake along the way, he believes there is no need for explanation plaques for disaster relics.

“If you walk there, you’ll see,” he said.

Togashi was born and raised in Kobe, where he was affected by the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.

“You can’t generalize disaster victims. The extent of damage they suffer varies depending on the person, and there are things they find it hard to tell those close to them. I guess those things they can open up about only in a once-in-a-lifetime encounter,” said Togashi, who thinks that, to hikers, local residents are the ones providing support, and to local residents, hikers are who support them.

Michinoku Coastal Trail

The approximately 1,000-kilometer walking nature path goes through 29 municipalities in four prefectures, from Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, to Soma, Fukushima Prefecture. The Environment Ministry developed the trail as part of reconstruction efforts following the Great East Japan Earthquake. The path opened in its entirety in June 2019. Notable points include Kabushima Shrine in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, known as a stopover site for black-tailed gulls; the “miracle pine tree” in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, the last tree standing where there used to be a pine forest; and Matsukawaura seashore lake, a scenic spot in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture.