The horrendous tsunami devastated Japan’s Tohoku region in 2011 (Credits: JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images)
Survivors of Japan’s harrowing earthquake and tsunami which claimed nearly 20,000 lives have reported encountering ghosts of the dead.
The disaster wiped out towns and cities in the northeastern Tohoku region after a devastating magnitude 9 earthquake struck out of the blue on March 11, 2011.
It sent waves the size of three-storey buildings smashing into the coastline, washing away thousands of residents along with their homes and belongings.
The tsunami also sent the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into meltdown and triggered the release of so much radiation it is ranked second only to the Chernobyl disaster in severity.
Once the dust settled, traumatised survivors numbed by their sudden loss started to report seeing the faces of their lost loved ones in puddles, walking by their homes and even in the back of taxis.
Many in Ishinomaki, 93 miles north of the Fukushima plant, shared their stories of ‘tsunami ghosts’ in an episode of the 2020 Netflix documentary ‘Unsolved Mysteries’.
Tsunami ghost sightings after the disaster
In Ishinomaki alone, a city some 93 miles north of the Fukushima nuclear plant, around 6,000 people died in the tsunami.
Unsolved Mysteries investigated the case of tsunami ghosts (Picture: Netflix)
In months following the disaster, rumours began to spread among the city’s cabbies over ghost passengers riding a taxi before disappearing.
Kiyoshi Kanebishi, professor of sociology at Tohoku Gakuin University who has studied the phenomenon of supernatural experiences of the survivors, said the ‘most believable’ sightings came from taxi drivers ‘because there were physical records connected to their sightings’.
A driver told him of a strangely dressed male passenger donning a thick coat in the August heat.
The driver switched on his meter, but he ‘felt there was something strange about the passenger’, Kanebishi said.
‘By the time they had arrived, the sun had already set. When he looked back the passenger had disappeared.
‘There were several taxi drivers with similar experiences.’
It turned out the taxi drivers were the ones paying for the mysterious rides, he claimed.
He added: ‘Many taxi drivers had experienced the loss of their families to the tsunami as well.’
‘So they said they would welcome the ghosts with open arms if they needed to ride again.
‘The disaster was very traumatic for the people of the Tohoku region.
‘I think the presence of ghosts is a way for people to deal with their PTSD in the community, I believe that’s what’s being manifested here’, the expert said.
Journalist Shûji Okuno spoke with many bereaved who were ‘desperate to see the spirits.’
‘They said they were still looking for some kind of message from them’, he said in the documentary episode ‘Tsunami Spirits’.
He told of a mum who lost her three-year-old son to the tsunami.
At dinner time when she out of habit called towards his play corner, one of his toy trains with manually operated light and sound suddenly switched on as if in response.
‘Tsunami Spirits’ episode told one mum’s heartbreaking story after losing her son in the 2011 disaster (Credit: Netflix)
He said there was ‘no way it could have been turned on itself without any force.’
Other heartbreaking stories included a local hearing a knock on the door, with a stranger standing there with drenched clothes and asking for help. .
A woman, who said she has seen spirits since she was a little girl, told the documentary makers of being stopped by a group of men killed in the tsunami.
Visibly emotional, she said ‘they didn’t seem to know they were deceased but I knew they were no longer living in this world’.
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