Reece Simmonds’s Reviews > Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone > Status Update
Reece Simmonds
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The latest chapter I read was titled ‘Ghosts’ and as can be guessed, this started to introduce some of the ghost sightings and possessions that had occurred after the disaster with an introduction into the nations spirituality. There is lots I want to talk about just with this chapter alone but I don’t really have the word count. Instead, in the comments, I will condense some of the stories
— Dec 05, 2025 06:13PM
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Reece Simmonds
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'Every day, I think about my children and how each of them would be, if they were here. Today would be a birthday, for example. Or this month one of them would have been taking an entrance examination. In my heart, the children are still growing up. But I can't see them growing up’
— Dec 08, 2025 03:37PM
Reece Simmonds
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This book is really engaging and incredibly well written but at the same time, I’m struggling to read more than a chapter or 2 at night
— Dec 03, 2025 05:50PM
Reece Simmonds
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Part 1 complete. The school talked about had 108 students. Of the 78 who were there when the tsunami hit, 74 and 10 out of the 11 teachers had died.
— Nov 24, 2025 09:39AM
Reece Simmonds
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This going to be a difficult read. So far, I have read the epilogue and chapter 1 and 2 of Part 1. We have accounts of two mothers who lost their children in the disaster. Whether I am able to finish this book, I don’t know.
It’s written incredibly well though. The author was in Japan at the time and interviews the families. The accounts are simply harrowing.
— Nov 23, 2025 05:33PM
It’s written incredibly well though. The author was in Japan at the time and interviews the families. The accounts are simply harrowing.
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These stories do make me feel incredibly uneasy. I don’t think I necessarily believe in the paranormal or the after life but I believe that these experiences happened if that makes sense? But then there was a story, that was really quite hard to read, about a man who had been ‘possessed’ after the disaster. This, I can’t think of any explanation for. It’s a story that’s too long to paste on here but one that has really interested me and again made me feel a general sense of uneasiness. I suppose I simply can’t imagine the pain that the survivors of the tsunami felt.
“A civil servant in Soma visited a devastated stretch of coast and saw a solitary woman in a scarlet dress far from the nearest road or house, with no means of transport in sight. When he looked for her again, she had disappeared.”
“A fire station in Tagajo received calls to
places where all the houses had been destroyed by the tsunami. The crews went out to the ruins anyway, prayed for the spirits of those who had died - and the ghostly calls ceased.”
“A taxi in the city of Sendai picked up a sad-faced man who asked to be taken to
an address that no long existed. Halfway through the journey, the driver looked into his mirror to see that the rear seat was empty. He drove on anyway, stopped in front of the levelled foundations of a destroyed house and politely opened the door to allow the invisible passenger out at his former home.”