The 833 inhabitants of the new town area, located within Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, are survivors of the disaster and come from six municipalities destroyed by the earthquake, which measured 9 on the Richter scale, and the tsunami that hit the land minutes later.
Until now the authorities had opened small villages in rural areas, but never a town as big as Tamaura-Nishi.
The city of Iwanuma, in which about 180 people were killed by the tsunami, is one of the most advanced in terms of reconstruction work. Four years and four months after the disaster, the reconstruction still continues.
