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A graduation ceremony for third-year students was held Monday at a high school in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, which had been devastated last year by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake and a series of heavy rainfalls.
The 96 students of Ishikawa prefectural Wajima High School bade a fond farewell to classmates as they departed from the school in the city located in the prefecture’s Noto region.
The ceremony was the first to be held in the school’s gymnasium in two years. After the quake struck, the gym was used as a shelter and many students evacuated the city, so last year’s graduation ceremony took place in the Ishikawa Ongakudo hall in Kanazawa.
Koko Shida, 17, who represented the graduating students, thanked people around them at the ceremony.
“We stepped forward during the days filled with anxiety in the past year. We could overcome the hardship because there were people by our side who supported us,” said Shida.
Naoshige Nakagawa, 18, was the captain of the school’s baseball team.
“After the quake, I thought we wouldn’t be able to play baseball, but we could continue playing and graduate from the school thanks to so many people,” he said.
About 6,400 students graduate this year from 47 public high schools in the prefecture. Graduation ceremonies are held between March 1 and 9.
