270px, Path on the top of the Hirokawa Embankment The is an

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

on the

Kii Channel The , also called the Kii Strait, is a strait separating the Japanese island of Shikoku from the Kii Peninsula on the main island of Honshū. This strait connects the Inland Sea with the Pacific Ocean. The name of the strait derives from Kii Pr ...

coast in what is now part of the town of

Hirogawa, Wakayama 270px, Inamura no hi no yakata is a town in Arida District, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 6,778 in 2833 households and a population density of 100 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Geogr ...

, Japan. It was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1938. It was built by Hamaguchi Goryō after the 1854 Ansei-Nankai earthquake and continued to protect the town against the

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

of the

1946 Nankai earthquake The 1946 Nankai earthquake (昭和南海地震 Shōwa period, Shōwa Nankai jishin) was a great earthquake in Nankaidō, Occupation of Japan, Japan. It occurred on December 21, 1946, at 04:19 Japan Standard Time, JST (December 20, 19:19 UTC). The ...

Overview

The village of Hiro is located at the innermost part of Yuasa Bay and has been severely damaged by tsunami since ancient times. During the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

, in 1399, a stone wall was constructed by the

Hatakeyama clan The was a Japanese samurai clan. Originally a branch of the Taira clan and descended from Taira no Takamochi, they fell victim to political intrigue in 1205, when Hatakeyama Shigeyasu, first, and his father Shigetada later were killed in battle ...

who ruled this portion of

Kii Province , or , was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is today Wakayama Prefecture, as well as the southern part of Mie Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kii''" in . Kii bordered Ise, Izumi, Kawachi, Shima, and Yamato Pro ...

as a measure against tsunami. This stone wall was approximately 2.7 meters high with a length of 400 meters, and portions (now reinforced with concrete) remain in use to this day. Protection afforded by this seawall was one of the factors which led to the prosperity of the village. However, a tsunami caused by the 1605 Keichō earthquake breached this ancient defense and caused severe damage. In response,

Tokugawa Yorinobu was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Born under the name Nagatomimaru (長福丸), he was the 10th son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, by his concubine Kageyama-dono. On December 8, 1603, Yorinobu received the fief of Mito, then rated at 20 ...

, ruler of

Kishū Domain , or , was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is today Wakayama Prefecture, as well as the southern part of Mie Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kii''" in . Kii bordered Ise, Izumi, Kawachi, Shima, and Yamato Prov ...

, ordered the construction of a new seawall. Called the "Wada Ishitsutsumi", it was constructed from 1661 to 1673 and was approximately 218 meters long. It protected ships from high tides, and Hiro Village flourished as a relay port. However, this seawall was breached by the tsunami of the

1707 Hōei earthquake The struck south-central Japan at 14:00 local time on 28 October. It was the largest earthquake in Japanese history until it was surpassed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. It caused moderate to severe damage throughout southwestern Honshu, Sh ...

, which devastated Hiro village, destroying 850 buildings and killing 192 persons. The wall was rebuilt by 1802, but was frequently damaged by storms and smaller tsunami, and requests for its repair were often ignored by the financially-strapped Kishū Domain. Hiro Village was again devastated by a tsunami from the 1854 Ansei-Nankai earthquake, which destroyed 125 houses and damaged 56 more. However, the death toll was only 30 people due to the quick actions of local magistrate Hamaguchi Goryō, who ordered that stacked sheaves of rice, which were drying after the recent harvest, to be set on fire to guide the villagers to safety at the

Hiro Hachiman Shrine is a Shinto shrine located in the town of Hirogawa), Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. The shrine is dedicated to the ''kami'' Hachiman. It contains a number of structures which are designated as National Important Cultural Properties. The shrine is al ...

, which was located on high ground. This action was made famous by ''Inamura no Hi: The Burning Rice Fields'' by Tsunezo Nakai (translated and published in English by

Sara Cone Bryant Sara Cone Bryant (1873May 28, 1956) was an American lecturer, teacher, and writer. She wrote children's books in the early 20th century. She also supported and took a leadership role in Women's suffrage in the United States, women's suffrage. Ear ...

) and

Lafcadio Hearn , born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (; el, Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χέρν, Patríkios Lefkádios Chérn, Irish language, Irish: Pádraig Lafcadio O'hEarain), was an Irish people, Irish-Greeks, Greek-Japanese people, Japanese writer, t ...

's ''Gleanings in Buddha-Fields'' (1897), with some elaborations, and the account of his heroism became required reading in Japanese textbooks. However, many of the survivors of the disaster had lost their homes and/or their livelihoods. Hamaguchi obtained permission from Kishū Domain to build a new seawall, the Hiromura Embankment, using his own funds. The purpose was not only to protect the village against the new tsunami, but was also a

public works Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, sc ...

project to provide employment and to provide reassurance to residents hesitant to return to the village after the disaster. Construction began in February 1855, less than three months after the earthquake and was completed in December 1858, when the length of the embankment reached 670 meters. Plans to make the embankment longer were curtailed due to increasing unrest in the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

about the increasing incursions of foreign ships in violation of Japan's national isolation policy and the need to bolster coastal defenses. The total costs of the construction have been estimated as high as 1.86 billion Yen in modern terms. The Hiromura Embankment has a height of approximately five meters, and a width at its base 20 meters. The total surviving length is 640 meters. There are two cut-throughs in the embankment with tide doors. One was made in 1926 and the other in 1980. The earlier Hatakeyama seawall is located in between the Hiromura Embankment and the ocean.The area in between was planted with

Japanese black pine ''Pinus thunbergii'' (syn: ''Pinus thunbergiana''), also called black pine, Japanese black pine, and Japanese pine, is a pine tree native to coastal areas of Japan (Kyūshū, Shikoku and Honshū) and South Korea. It is called () in Korean, () ...

and Japanese spindle as well as

Japanese lacquer is a Japanese craft with a wide range of fine and decorative arts, as lacquer has been used in '' urushi-e'', prints, and on a wide variety of objects from Buddha statues to ''bento'' boxes for food. The characteristic of Japanese lacquerware ...

. Hamaguchi intended that revenue from sales of lacquer and wax would pay for the upkeep of the embankment. The Hiromura Embankment protected the town against a

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

in 1913 and the tsunami of the

1944 Tōnankai earthquake The 1944 Tōnankai earthquake occurred at 13:35 local time (04:35 UTC) on 7 December. It had an estimated magnitude of 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale (making it the strongest known earthquake of 1944) and a maximum felt intensity of greater th ...

as well as the estimated five-meter tsunami of the 1946 Nankai earthquake.

References

External links

Japan MeteorologicalAgency official site

{{in lang, ja History of Wakayama Prefecture Hirogawa, Wakayama Historic Sites of Japan Seawalls

Overview

See also

References

External links