Requiem: March 11, 2011 – The Day My Alma Mater Became a Mortuary

March 11, 2011. Kamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture. When the Great East Japan Earthquake sent a devastating tsunami crashing into the coastline, countless lives were lost in an instant. In the days that followed, dental assistant Takako Otani worked without pause at a temporary mortuary, taking on the heartbreaking task of identifying the dead through their dental records. Matching tooth impressions to the missing, she labored to give names back to the tsunami's victims—and to offer the families left behind the certainty that their loved ones had been found. Two years after the disaster, in the lounge of a certain hotel in Iwate Prefecture, Takako finally begins to recount what she endured during those harrowing days. "The sights I witnessed then... I still cannot forget them, even now..." Her testimony is a solemn account of the days when her alma mater became a mortuary, of the quiet dignity with which the departed were received, and of the weight carried by those who tended to them. It stands as a testament to loss, remembrance, and the resilience of those who carried on in the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy.