There used to be a telephone box in the middle of the Kamaishi stadium. Nodoka Kikuchi reckons it was somewhere right around the halfway line. She’d know. She was the last person to ever use it. That was at a 2.45pm on 11 March 2011. She was 15, had just got out of high school, and was calling her parents to come and pick her up. A minute later, the great earthquake struck. “It started to shake from side-to-side,” she says. “It was terrible, I was holding on to the box, and my friend outside was hugging a gate, because it was the only way we could stand up.” Behind them, the earth of the school football pitch split open and water started to spray out of the ground “like a fountain”.
Related: Rugby fans allowed own food in World Cup venues after shortages
Written by Andy Bull in Kamaishi
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/23/kamaishi-stadium-rugby-world-cup-tsunami under the title “‘Someone shouted tsunami’: Kamaishi set to play emotional role in World Cup story | Andy Bull”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
