A 15-year-old girl, Masako Kobayashi, sat alone on a hill a few weeks after Japan was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, a disaster that struck on March 11, killed almost 16,000 people and led to the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. She gazed at the devastated land for hours. More than 200 residents of Kesen, her small community within the coastal city of Rikuzentakata, were dead. Of some 550 homes, all but two were destroyed. Most survivors left, but about 15 residents refused to abandon their town, living amid the debris for months without electricity or water.

Masako, now 22, was one of them. She had survived the disaster along with her father, Nobuo, the chief monk of the temple; her mother, Kouko; and her older brother, Takamasa. She lost her house and all of her belongings, and the most important thing for her family — the Kongoji Temple, the historic Buddhist temple according to Nobuo had been established about 1,200 years ago and had been the heart of the community for centuries — had washed away.