In this photo taken on April 7, 2011, Japan Self-Defense Force personnel stand near some safes they retrieved from houses destroyed by the tsunami in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan.
One month after the March 11 tsunami devastated Ofunato and other nearby cities, police departments already stretched thin now face the growing task of managing lost wealth.
"At first we put all the safes in the station," said Noriyoshi Goto, head of the Ofunato Police Department's financial affairs department, which is in charge of lost-and-found items. "But then there were too many, so we had to move them."
Goto couldn't specify how many safes his department has collected so far, saying only that there were "several hundreds" with more coming in every day.
Identifying the owners of lost safes is hard enough. But it's nearly impossible when it comes to wads of cash being found in envelops, unmarked bags, boxes and furniture.
Yasuo Kimura, 67, considers himself one of the lucky ones. The tsunami swallowed and gutted his home in Onagawa, about 50 miles (75 kilometers) south of Ofunato. He escaped with his 90-year-old father on his back. But he still has money in the bank.
That's not the case for many of his longtime friends and acquaintances, said Kimura, a former bank employee.
"I spent my career trying to convince them to deposit their money in a bank," he said, staring out at his flattened city. "They always thought it was safer to keep it at home."
The number of safes that have turned up in Ofunato alone is a reflection of the area's population: In Iwate prefecture where this Pacific fishing town is located, nearly 30 percent of the population is over 65.
Many of them keep money at home out of habit and convenience, said Koetsu Saiki of the Miyagi Prefectural Police's financial affairs department. This practice is likely compounded by persistently low interest rates, leaving little financial incentive for depositing money in a bank.
As in Iwate, local police stations in Miyagi are reporting "very high numbers" of safes and cash being turned in.
"It's just how people have operated their entire lives," he said. "When they need money, they'd rather have their money close by. It's not necessarily that they don't trust banks. But there are a lot of people who don't feel comfortable using ATMs, especially the elderly."
A 2008 report by Japan's central bank estimated that more than a third of 10,000-yen ($118) banknotes issued don't actually circulate. That amounts to some 30 trillion yen, or $354 billion at current exchange rates, ferreted away.
