In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, most elementary school students lost their lives, along with all but one of their teachers, no thanks to a vague manual about tsunami evacuations.

On March 11, 70% of students at Okawa Primary School were killed.  10 of the 11 teachers were also killed.  When the 9.0 earthquake hit, teachers knew they needed to get the kids home, so they called the parents to come pick them up.  But time was against them.  Suddenly the tsunami warning sounded.  The teachers looked in a manual to figure out what to do.  The manual simply said “get to higher ground”.

Okawa Primary School is located on the edge of a large river that empties into the ocean.  The only high ground is a steep mountainside that the teachers didn’t think the kids could climb, so they headed for a bridge.  A 70 year old witness said he was amazed, they were going the wrong way!  He ran towards the mountain and survived, only to witness the line of children, and their teachers, get hit by the tsunami.

One problem for the decision making of the teachers was a tsunami survey, which said that any tsunami that reached the school would be less than one meter (3.2 feet) high.  The tsunami that hit the school, on March 11, was 10 meters (32.8 feet) high.  “No one thought tsunami would even reach this area.”-witness