Taro Kanko Hotel Tsunami Ruins

The former Taro Kanko Hotel stands on the coast of the Taro district of Miyako, one of the communities hardest hit by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Built in 1986, the six-story building was engulfed by a wave more than 17 meters high: the tsunami tore the steel frames out of the first and second floors and flooded up to the fourth, yet the structure stayed standing. It is now preserved as a tsunami ruin (shinsai iko), a stark reminder of the wave's force. From the sixth floor the hotel's owner filmed the tsunami as it struck, and that footage is shown to visitors on the guided 'Learn Disaster Prevention' (Manabu Bosai) tour run by the Miyako Tourism and Culture Exchange Association. You can view the ruins from outside at any time for free; to go inside you join the guided tour, which needs advance booking and has a fee. The site is about a 15-minute walk from Shin-Taro Station on the Sanriku Railway, or a short drive off Route 45 near Michi-no-Eki Taro, with parking and a restroom.