Ghosts of the Tsunami
Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone
Seventy-four children died waiting in a schoolyard beside a hill it would have taken a minute to climb.
Lloyd Parry was Tokyo correspondent when the 2011 tsunami killed eighteen thousand people, and he spent six years on one school. Seventy-four children at Okawa Elementary died in the open while their teachers debated where to go; the hill behind them took a minute to climb. The book follows the parents through grief, litigation and the ghosts that people in the disaster zone reported seeing. Restrained and devastating.
Recommended by 1 Person
Kate Summerscale
Richard Lloyd Parry was a foreign correspondent in Tokyo at the time of the Japanese tsunami in 2011. In telling the story of that disaster, he focuses on one village primary school where almost all the children lost their lives, and the long investigation into whether their teachers were partly to blame for their deaths.
Interview · March 2025
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.