MINAMISANRIKU, Miyagi Pref.: A project is underway in a northeastern Japan town hit hard by a massive earthquake and tsunami 13 years ago to develop a life jacket with a GPS feature, aiming to swiftly locate people caught up in water-related disasters.

The idea of a GPS life vest was proposed by Kazukiyo Takahashi, 63, who was working at the town government of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, at the time of the March 11, 2011, disaster.

When the quake struck, Takahashi and his colleagues were at a town government building. After making his way to an evacuation shelter set up on a hill, he witnessed the building he had been in just moments before engulfed in the tsunami, with the entire town reduced to a pile of rubble. The only thing that remained of the building after the tsunami was the main frame.

The tsunami killed 43 town government employees. “I might’ve faced the same fate as them,” Takahashi said. After the disaster, he worked on providing support for affected residents and on the town’s reconstruction efforts. Time, however, did not heal his psychological wounds.

He was struck by the thought that his colleagues could have been saved if they had been wearing a GPS life jacket. He consulted Akemi Arima, head of Guardian72, a company working on disaster prevention, leading to the launch of the GPS life vest project.

In October last year, a trial run of the life jacket was held in Shizugawa Bay in Minamisanriku. During the test, the location of a diver wearing such equipment was identified at a town office, and the information was then relayed to a fishing vessel, which rescued the diver.

The trial run was almost successful. The town plans to commercialize the equipment in May after making some improvements. “I hope that it will help save as many lives as possible,” Takahashi said of the life vest.

Takahashi recalls that he had been called a “tsunami child” by those around him, as he was born in 1960, when a tsunami from a massive earthquake in Chile hit Miyagi Prefecture and other areas in Japan, claiming many lives.

“Tsunamis have always been a concern for the town’s residents, with many telling me that another one would come in my lifetime,” Takahashi said.

He currently serves as adviser to the Minamisanriku 311 Memorial, a facility built in the town to pass on memories of the 2011 disaster.

“Another (tsunami) may come 30 years from now,” he said. “We must never forget (the 2011 disaster).”

JIJI Press