“We chase the big ones,” says disaster management volunteer . “Kanamachi was medium. But medium water is still deep enough to drown a child.”

However, exclusive interviews with local NGOs in 2014 revealed a secondary crisis: . The storm surge contaminated over 2,000 shallow tube wells. In the months following Kanamachi, an outbreak of dysentery and diarrhea claimed nearly 30 more lives—a figure rarely added to the cyclone’s official legacy.