MORIOKA, IWATE PREF. ¨C The number of visitors to facilities to pass down the lessons of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region has continued to decline after peaking in 2023.

As financial support is being cut or ended for some of such facilities, the operators face challenges in passing on memories of the disasters to the next generation in a sustainable manner.

The total number of visitors to 42 facilities, including memorial museums and disaster ruins, in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima stood at 1,503,844 in 2025, falling for the second consecutive year. The previous year marked the first decrease excluding during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey by the 3.11 Memorial Network, a public interest incorporated association in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

Of the three prefectures, only Miyagi logged an increase in the number of visitors.

¡°The younger generations who don¡¯t know the disasters are increasing, and there are strong concerns about collective memories fading,¡± a local government official said.

As for the factors behind the decline, some facilities have pointed to a series of bear sightings in the Tohoku region last autumn and a decrease in school trips.

Meanwhile, the 3.11 Memorial Network noted that facilities making efforts to enhance the quality of their exhibitions are gaining visitors, including repeat ones.

At Tsunami Memorial Hall in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, the number of visitors has been flat for the last few years, standing at around 30,000 annually. Its operator is boosting efforts to attract new visitors by holding online lectures at and dispatching kataribe storytellers to schools and other establishments far from the facility.

The operator is seeking to attract group visitors for school trips and corporate training. But securing human resources remains a challenge as there is only one full-time storyteller at the facility despite visitor demand for hearing stories from those who have experienced the disasters.

The aging of storytellers is a common problem for memorial facilities. ¡°It would be good to hire someone who was an elementary or junior high school student at the time, but that¡¯s difficult in reality,¡± said an official of Tsunami Memorial Hall.

Fifteen years after the disasters, activities for passing down memories are at a major turning point as there is a gap in related budgets among affected prefectures.

While reconstruction budgets are being reduced or terminated in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, Fukushima is expected to continue to secure financial resources.