Sanriku-Cho, Japan
Noriko Amiya stands inside her ruined laboratory on the campus of Kitasato University in northeast Japan. Equipment, broken glass, and books are strewn across the floor. The smell of spilled chemicals, including methanol and formaldehyde, fills the air. Gaping cracks run down the walls.
The marine-biology professor was here on March 11 when the room began to shake. "At first I thought it was going to be OK, but then the shaking grew stronger and stronger, and I grew very scared," she says.
As she speaks, she glances around the room wearily. Outside, a diesel generator runs the entire university. It's unlikely that Ms. Amiya or any of the other 25 faculty members on the campus will ever teach in this building again.
A mile away, on the edge of the ocean, the once sleepy fishing town of Sakihama exists in name only. The tsunami that followed the most powerful recorded earthquake to hit Japan has torn the town from its roots, leaving a gaping wound of smashed cars, pulverized wooden houses, and twisted metal girders. Car-navigation systems still direct visitors to the post office, which is no longer there. Among the people washed out to sea in this town of 8,300 was Kanae Seo, a 19-year-old student at Kitasato who was staying in a local apartment building that offered cheap rooms for students.
"The students were in an apartment block over there," explains Kenji Nakajima, a local fisherman, pointing toward the rubble. No other students were actually in the building at the time, however: The earthquake hit during Japan's spring university recess, preventing higher casualties. Behind Mr. Nakajima is a 10-meter tsunami wall made of reinforced concrete, erected half a century ago after a similar tragedy. "We thought we were safe. I couldn't believe it when I saw the water coming over the barrier. It was 15 or 20 meters high. I ran for my life."
About 600 students come to this famously picturesque campus each year to study the local marine life off the azure-blue Pacific coast. But its proximity to the sea, and to the epicenter of the huge quake about 80 miles away, left it especially vulnerable. Its position on top of a hill overlooking Sakihama saved it from the waves but not the magnitude-9.0 trembler, which shook the main building so violently that it is structurally unsound. Other, newer buildings are likely to survive.
All 600 students will have to move to the private university's parent campus in Tokyo. Professors will have to relocate, and the main Sanriku building will probably be condemned.
"It's a major operation," sighs Takashi Asahida, an associate professor of marine bioscience and fish ecology. "But we were lucky. We had our graduate ceremony on March 9 with 300 students. If the quake had struck then, it would have been much worse."
Mr. Asahida, who was in a fourth-floor laboratory when the earthquake hit, led several students to safety on the university soccer field that day. "We train for disaster evacuation every January—it helped."
Buckled Highways and Blown Networks
Across the northeast, universities and colleges are taking stock after the disaster. Most have spent the last three weeks frantically trying to locate missing students and faculty. Buckled highways, blown-out phone networks, and a shortage of fuel have hampered the search, and recovery: Japanese universities often rely heavily on cellphones to stay in touch with their students.
Most universities will stay closed until late next month or May, weeks late for the new semester, which normally begins in April.
"We have confirmed the deaths of 28 students at our private universities," says Kazuhiro Yamaguchi, a spokesman for Japan's Ministry of Education. "But that figure will almost certainly grow in the coming weeks." Another seven public university students have been confirmed dead, including three from Kyoto University who had been traveling along the northern coast.
At least one student from Tohoku University, the region's most prestigious higher-education institution, in the city of Sendai, is missing and presumed dead. The city of two million was closest to the earthquake, but it was not affected by the tsunami. The WPI-Advanced Institute for Materials Research, which is attached to the university, and other affected areas of the campus lost millions of dollars due to broken equipment. "We're still trying to access the damage," a spokesman says.
Five students from the private Ishinomaki Senshu University in Miyagi prefecture, which borders Iwate, lost their lives in the tragedy. Nearly half of Ishinomaki City was inundated by the tsunami, which traveled 600 meters inland and swept away hundreds of buildings.
The university campus, which is largely undamaged, has been converted into a refugee center to house the spillover of homeless people from a crowded local elementary school. Red Cross volunteers, national Self-Defense Force troops, and aid workers are using the campus as a base. "Our buildings are sound, so we could start classes on time, but we're pushing back the start of classes until May 30," says spokesman Masahiko Takasaki.
Other colleges have been largely unaffected but must postpone the start of the academic year because of the damage to local infrastructure. "We're surrounded by chaos," explains Tatsutomi Katsuta, president of the private Shuko University in Ichinoseki City, which was hit by the tsunami, and has about 200 students. "There still isn't enough fuel—the transport system isn't running properly. So we'll have to postpone opening for two weeks."
The quake and tsunami temporarily shut down several major research facilities in the region, including the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), south of Sendai, and parts of the High-Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Tsukuba. Some researchers have been transferring work to the largely untouched west and south of the country.
With the start of the academic year looming, institutions in the northeast and in Tokyo are also concerned about electricity shortages, as the country's biggest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co., battles to prevent meltdown at a crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, 155 miles northeast of Tokyo. Most have already begun contingency plans, sparking fears on campuses of extreme belt-tightening. One rumor is that even the use of PowerPoint could be outlawed.
"Power cuts are very likely, especially in Tokyo, which is very hot in the summer and needs air conditioners," says Akiyoshi Yonezawa, who researches higher-education issues at Nagoya University. "Nobody knows what to do."
And then there is the cost of rebuilding from Japan's worst disaster since the Second World War, a financial drain on universities and colleges already struggling to survive falling enrollment. Public universities like Tohoku and Iwate will likely receive government help, but private institutions such as Kitasato are on their own. "It's a worry," admits Mr. Asahida.
The human cost will be harder to calculate. Like many people here, Ms. Amiya has been traumatized by the disaster. "We would have had injuries, even death, if more students had been here," she says. Like other faculty members and administrators, she will have to decamp to Tokyo, hundreds of miles away. But Mr. Asahida says he's leaving his children behind in this crippled town.
"It's safer here," he laughs. "Tokyo is scarier because there could be a big earthquake there, too, and it has more people and buildings."
