As many will be able to cast their memory back, we will all remember the catastrophic Earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Japan coast on march the 11th 2011. Combining both the tsunami and Earthquake the impact in terms of damage to the infrastructure and the resulting loss of life was cataclysmic, over 15,000 people lost their lives and as many as 120,000 buildings were destroyed.

That damage was done in no more than a few minutes however for months to come many were left without basic necessities such as running water and electricity. The Tōhoku earthquake, named for the region of northeastern Japan from which it originated, was the most devastating in the nation’s recorded history.

It took months for many to get back to their day to day lives and some areas are still abandoned to this day, however, amongst the rebuilding process there was a strange phenomenon being reported by the survivors, across all of the most hard-hit cities there were reports of confirmed deceased victims being identified and spotted roaming the local beaches and even turning up at homes. To make it even stranger, these were not one-off encounters, these reports were coming in from many areas, and seemingly all shared many of the same hallmarks, many were reporting that these people were being seen with clothes that seemed to be damp, linking back the natural disaster that resulted in their death. 

As of recently, this phenomenon has been featured a fair amount in popular culture. Specifically in the show unsolved mysteries we learn of the common phenomenon the taxi drivers of some of the hardest-hit areas have been experiencing since the tsunami. Someone who focused on this specific area was a graduate sociology student by the name of Yuka Kudo, she travelled to Ishinomaki which with over 3000 deaths and close to 3000 missing persons and a whopping 50000 buildings that had been destroyed it was one of the hardest-hit areas. As a result, most of the stories you would hear from taxi drivers in the area is that they would be hard-pressed to find many customers, However, the vast majority of them would share the same story of strange out of place customers that would enter their taxi, only to be missing when the taxi reached its destination.

Taxi Drivers Accounts

One taxi driver gave a particularly chilling account of Kudo, It had only been a few months since the tsunami, and there were barely any customers. He was naturally shocked to suddenly spot a young woman hailing him down in a particularly hard-hit area. Wearing a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer, the figure was also completely drenched. The driver barely had time to realize that it hadn’t rained in days before she climbed into the back seat and asked to be driven to the largely-abandoned Minamihama district.

“That area is almost empty,” he said while switching on the meter. “Are you sure?” There was a long silence. Then, in a shivering voice, the woman asked: “Have I died?”

The terrified driver turned around to face the customer but found absolutely nothing nor anyone in his car.

Further Reading 

I could go on and on with the stories that have come out as a result of the tsunami, however rather than repeating the same stories in my own article, i would recommend reading some of the following articles;

https://longreads.com/2017/10/24/the-ghosts-of-the-tsunami/

https://screenrant.com/unsolved-mysteries-tsunami-spirits-leaves-out-possessions/