Home/Iwate/Rikuzentakata/Iwate Tsunami Memorial Museum

Iwate Tsunami Memorial Museum

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

tsunami3.11RikuzentakataMiracle Pinememorial museum

Photo: Yasu ( talk ) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · original

Iwate keeps its history in places like Iwate Tsunami Memorial Museum rather than in museums about it.

The Sanriku coast has been hit by major tsunami repeatedly — 1896, 1933, 1960, 2011 — and this museum, opened in September 2019, is the prefecture's attempt to hold all of that in one place rather than treating 2011 as an isolated event. Its stated theme is protecting life and living with the sea and the land.

The exhibits run to 1,155 square metres and include damaged objects, film shot during the disaster and photographs, arranged so that the mechanism of the wave, the failures of the defences and the recovery are each legible. It stands in the Takatamatsubara Tsunami Reconstruction Memorial Park, where the Miracle Pine — the single tree left of a forest of seventy thousand — is preserved a short walk away. Admission is free.

Before you go

Opening hours

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Last entry 4:30 PM

Closed: Closed 29 December – 3 January | Occasional additional closures

Admission

Free

Best time to visit

Year-round

Time to allow

2 hours

Getting there

Access notes

Kesen-cho Doteage 180, Rikuzentakata, inside the Takatamatsubara Tsunami Reconstruction Memorial Park. From JR Kesennuma Station on the Ofunato Line BRT to Kiseki-no-Ippon-Matsu Station, or by car. Closed 29 December – 3 January, with occasional additional closures. Admission is free. Exhibits cover 1,155 sq m and include damaged objects, disaster footage and photographs. The Miracle Pine stands a short walk away in the same park.

Beyond the guidebook

**Free admission.** The prefecture built it as a public record rather than an attraction, and there is no charge. **Walk out to the Miracle Pine.** One tree survived from a forest of about seventy thousand and is preserved in the same park. Seeing the museum and then the tree is the intended sequence. **It covers more than 2011.** 1896, 1933 and 1960 are all here. The repetition is the point the museum is making about this coast. **Storyteller sessions run separately.** Local guide organisations in Rikuzentakata run tours led by people who lived through it; they are booked through the tourism association, not the museum. **The BRT gets you here.** The Ofunato Line runs as a bus rapid transit route since the railway was not rebuilt, and the stop is named for the pine.

View on Google Maps