Time lapse: Ofunato rebuilding

JR Ofunato Station, then and now.

In 2013, buses started running to replace damaged trains.

Today, hotels and a Tsunami Awareness Center stand here.

South of the station, a mega hotel and malls of rebuilt business.

The city of Ofunato looks to be rebuilding 8 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

But all may not be as it seems.

Tomohiro Murata’s house used to be here.

“It was just 4 years old. It was completely destroyed.

Murata still owes about 120,000 dollars on the loan.

His photography and printing business was also destroyed.

Murata rented an office from a friend and got back to work. But his business is about ¼ of what it used to be.

“There’s just no work. The customers left. My equipment is gone. It will cost over 200,000 dollars to replace.”

The government and media are saying “Ganbaro,” let’s keep going. But it’s not that simple.

“Sometimes I come to this mall. It’s almost always empty. I feel the owners staring at me, hoping I’ll buy something.”

Murata makes school yearbooks. He can literally see the population declining.

“What do you think Ofunato will be like in 10 years?”

“Worse. Media says we’ll be recover in 10-15 years. But we are the ones living here, unrecovered, every single day.”

The appearance and the reality of Ofunato’s recovery tell two very different stories.