In a garden on a hill, under the wide boughs of a cherry tree, a white phone booth glistens in the early spring light.
Inside, Kazuyoshi Sasaki carefully dials his late wife Miwako's cellphone number, bending his large frame and cradling the handset.
He explains how he searched for her for days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami a decade ago, visiting evacuation centres and makeshift morgues, returning at night to the rubble of their home.
"It all happened in an instant, I can't forget it even now," he says, weeping. "I sent you a message telling you where I was, but you didn't check it."
Left: Sasaki holds a photograph of his wife Miwako. Right: Sasaki visits Miwako's grave.
"When I came back to the house and looked up at the sky, there were thousands of stars, it was like looking at a jewel box," the 67-year old says. "I cried and cried and knew then that so many people must have died."
Sasaki's wife was one of more than 20,000 people in northeastern Japan killed by the disaster that struck on March 11, 2011.
Many survivors say the unconnected phone line in the town of Otsuchi helps them keep in touch with their loved ones and gives them some solace as they grapple with their grief.
Left: Okawa calls her late husband with her two grandsons Reo and Daina. Right: Okawa poses for a photograph with her grandsons.
The 76-year-old, who learned about the hillside garden from friends, often brings her two grandsons here so they can also talk to their grandfather.
"Grandpa, it's been 10 years already and I'm going to be in middle school soon," says Daina, Okawa's 12-year-old grandson, as they all squeeze into the tiny phone box. "There's this new virus that's killing lots of people and that's why we're wearing masks. But we're all doing well."
Left: A visitor opens the phone booth. Right: A disconnected phone.
The phone now attracts thousands of visitors from all over Japan. It is not only used by tsunami survivors, but also by people who have lost relatives to sickness and suicide. Dubbed "the phone of the wind", it recently inspired a film.
A few months ago, Sasaki says he was approached by organisers who want to set up similar phones in Britain and Poland that would allow people to call relatives they had lost in the coronavirus pandemic.
"Just like a disaster, the pandemic came suddenly and when a death is sudden, the grief a family experiences is also much larger," the 76-year-old says.
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Before hanging up, Sasaki tells Miwako that a recent health checkup showed he had lost weight.
"I'll take care of myself," he promises her as a strong wind blows outside. "I'm so glad we met, thank you, we're all doing what we can, talk soon."
PHOTO EDITING MARIKA KOCHIASHVILI; TEXT EDITING PRAVIN CHAR; LAYOUT JULIA DALRYMPLE