Toyama Onsen; Sawano Yu

Toyama Onsen Sawano Yu is a hot spring bathing facility in Ōfunato city on the Sanriku Rias coast of Iwate prefecture, Japan, a deeply indented Pacific coastline of extraordinary scenic beauty and profound historical significance as one of the regions most devastated by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami — the worst natural disaster in Japan's post-war history — where the reconstruction of communities, infrastructure, and cultural institutions including the neighborhood onsen has been a central act of regional recovery and communal healing. Ōfunato, a fishing port city in one of Japan's most productive coastal fisheries zones, draws on the hot spring resources of the Sanriku coastal mountains to provide thermal mineral bathing for its fishing community and the regional visitors who have increasingly come to the Sanriku coast since its designation as part of the Sanriku Fukkō (Recovery) National Park, which aims to combine disaster memory, cultural heritage, and natural beauty into a coherent tourism landscape. The onsen serves both the practical warming and bathing needs of the coastal fishing community and the deeper cultural function of providing a space of communal warmth and renewal in a community rebuilding from tragedy.