On March 11, 2011, the massive earthquake followed by the tsunami completely wiped out the downtown district, farm fields, and residential areas.
Reconstruction soon followed. A massive conveyor belt was built to transport soil from a mountain for elevating the land.
From a distance, the conveyor belt blended into the background. A person looking toward the mountain might not discern the structure. But up close?
The conveyor belt with a height of 20 meters towers over the Lone Pine, the last surviving pine tree of the once 70,000 pines trees that lined the coastline.
The structure stretched 3 kilometers from a point near the Lone Pine to a mountain.
During the three years of operation, the conveyor belt transported over 5 million square meters of soil. But when the work was completed, workmen began dismantling the once proud structure into inconsequential sections, ready to be disposed of into the trash heap of scraped metal.
