Police Officer Visits Site Where Wife, Children Died in Landslide following Noto Quake; Car Seat Used by Son Found

By Taihei Ishikawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

16:32 JST, January 3, 2025

SUZU, Ishikawa — A police officer visited the site where his family died in a landslide that followed the Noto Peninsula Earthquake in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, for the first time on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the disaster.

“I’m back. Thank you, and sorry.”

Keisuke Oma, 42, was visiting his wife’s family in the Nie area of Suzu when the earthquake hit. The family home was buried in a landslide.

Oma was safe as he was out of the house at the time. However, the landslide claimed the lives of his wife Haruka, 38; daughter Yuka, 11; older son Taisuke, 9; and younger son Sosuke, 3. His wife’s parents were among the other five who died.

For the past year, Oma has avoided recalling that day, fearing it would bring back too many painful memories. However, he decided to visit the site on the first anniversary of the earthquake, thinking, “I cannot continue to turn my back. I feel my family is there.”

He visited near the site where Haruka’s family home had stood with a male relative on Wednesday morning. It was a clear, sunny day, just like that day one year ago. He laid down a bouquet of flowers in blue, white, and other colors, and joined his hands together for about 30 seconds.

The landscape around the site had been significantly changed due to earth and sand and fallen trees. However, he remembered the time he had spent with his family climbing the hill with his children and catching tadpoles in the rice field.

A car used by the family, battered and twisted after being swept away in the landslide, still lay just a short way down the hill. He found a car seat which Sosuke had used. It evoked memories of singing songs with his wife and children in their car, and he couldn’t stop crying.

When Oma saw families outside or in TV commercials, he used to be overwhelmed by the thought that it was something he once had. He ate a cake on his family members’ birthdays and brought a bouquet home on his wedding anniversary. But every time he did such things, he realized that he was alone and couldn’t help but cry.

Oma returned to his job as a police officer after thinking that his family would not want him to continue to be depressed. Remembering how his children had improved their rankings in the school marathon, he thought, “Next, it’s dad’s turn to do his best.” He participated in and completed the Kanazawa Marathon in October.

His family motto is: “If you have a goal and do your best, you can achieve it.” Oma said with a smile, “I would be glad if my children said ‘Dad, you were so cool.’”

He cannot say that he has found a sense of closure after just one year, but the feeling of wanting to do what his family wanted to do for the rest of his life and living each day without wasting it is growing, he said.

“I think I feel a little more at ease now,” he said about the visit to the site in Suzu on Wednesday.

After going back to his house in Kanazawa, he said to his family picture, “Let’s visit many places together this year.”

Oma wants to make this a year of doing what his family wanted to do such as the cafe hopping that his wife loved, watching the movies his children would probably have liked and going on the trip to South Korea that his family were looking forward to.