Festival in Japan town hit by 2011 tsunami features millions of sunflowers | NHK

Millions of sunflowers are blooming on farmland in a town on the Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast that was hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Farmers in Yamamoto Town’s Kasano District have been planting them every year since 2018 as sunflowers help make the damaged soil fertile for growing crops.

About a half of the 2.8 million Sun Marino variety of relatively short sunflowers on a tract of 7.6 hectares are in bloom.

The town kicked off a sunflower festival on Friday for visitors to enjoy picking and taking photos of the flowers and strolling.

A woman in her 70s from a neighboring town said the yellow flowers in full bloom brighten her heart. She said she wants to come back to view them many more times.

The festival will run through July 28. The sunflowers are expected to be in full bloom early next week.