The Great East Japan Earthquake is a turning point in the novel’s account of loss and its aftermath. For Yasuyo Miyamoto, the disaster brings the destruction of familiar communities and the end of her two establishments; for the later investigation, the broader passage of time and the precarious employment system around nuclear plants leave little documentary trace of workers’ identities.

Disaster and Local Aftermath

More than a decade after Yasuyo’s earlier encounters with Kyoichiro Kaga, the earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant stand out as the most consequential changes in her world. She recalls the devastation in her neighborhood and the deaths of coastal relatives caught in the tsunami. When she later goes to place commemorative wreaths, the scale of destruction overwhelms her: homes, cars, and fishing boats lie together beneath mud, while the fate of people who may remain undiscovered is uncertain. The disaster is thus remembered not only as a single rupture, but through the bereavement and ruined landscape that follow it.

A Changed Life for Yasuyo

In the earthquake’s aftermath, Yasuyo closes both of her establishments. Electricity, gas, and water have been cut off, making it impossible to operate; she also expects that customers will not return for some time. Now over seventy, she treats the closure as an occasion to change course rather than attempt an immediate reopening. Savings accumulated during the boom years, together with her state pension, allow her to live comfortably. She meets old friends for drinks and takes occasional trips, regarding her circumstances as comparatively fortunate for someone who survived the earthquake.

Effects on the Investigation

The novel links the disaster’s historical setting to a separate obstacle in the inquiry into an old nuclear-plant worker. Investigators learn that too much time has passed for relevant records to remain: companies are required to retain employee documents for three years, but the rule does not cover short-term workers. Nuclear-plant work is often routed through layers of contractors and subcontractors, and workers may use false names and forged residence cards. If Shunichi Watabe was working under an assumed identity, finding evidence of him is especially difficult. The earthquake is not presented as the sole cause of that archival problem; rather, the investigation encounters the combined effects of elapsed time, insecure contracting, and identities that may never have been properly recorded.

Narrative Significance

The disaster joins private grief to broader changes in infrastructure, work, and memory. Yasuyo’s account centers on family and neighborhood loss, while the investigation’s search for a past worker runs up against the disappearance of records and the opacity of subcontracted labor. In this way, the earthquake and its aftermath form both a personal divide in Yasuyo’s life and part of the altered social landscape through which the novel’s later inquiry must proceed.