AYUKAWAHAMA, Japan » At first glance, it seemed like just one more flattened building in a seaside town where a tsunami had leveled hundreds of homes. But survivors gathered at this one to stand and brood.

They came to what had been the headquarters of Ayukawa Whaling, one of only a handful of companies left in Japan that still hunted large whales. Those who gathered on a chilly recent Thursday spoke as if the company’s destruction two weeks ago had robbed the town of its soul.

“There is no Ayukawa without whaling,” said Hiroyuki Akimoto, 27, a fisherman and an occasional crewman on the whaling boats, referring to the town by its popular shorthand.

Japan’s tsunami seems to have succeeded — where years of boycotts, protests and high-seas chases by Western environmentalists had failed — in knocking out a pillar of the nation’s whaling industry. Ayukawahama was one of only four communities in Japan that defiantly carried on whaling and eating whales as a part of the local culture, even as the rest of the nation lost interest in whale meat.

So central is whaling to the local identity that many here see the fate of the town and the industry as inextricably linked.

“This could be the final blow to whaling here,” said Makoto Takeda, a 70-year-old retired whaler. “So goes whaling, so goes the town.”

The damage was particularly heavy here because Ayukawahama sits on the tip of a peninsula that was the closest land to the huge undersea earthquake two weeks ago. The resulting tsunami tore through the tiny fishing towns on the mountainous coastline, reducing Ayukawahama to an expanse of splintered wood and twisted cars. Three out of four homes were destroyed, forcing half of the town’s 1,400 residents into makeshift shelters.

At the offices of Ayukawa Whaling, only a light green harpoon gun — which once proudly decorated the entrance — and an uprooted pine tree were left standing. Across a parking lot stood the skeletal frame of the factory where whale meat was processed. A beached fishing boat and crumpled fire truck lay on the raised platform where the whales were hoisted ashore to be butchered.

The company’s three boats, which had been sucked out to sea, washed up miles down the coast with remarkably little damage. But they remain grounded there.

Ayukawa Whaling’s chairman, Minoru Ito, said he was in the office when the earthquake struck, shattering windows and toppling furniture. He led the employees to higher ground.

All 28 of them survived, he said, though he later had to lay them off. He said he fully intended to rebuild, hopefully in time for an autumn hunt off the northern island of Hokkaido, though he acknowledged the recovery might take more time. He said the most costly part would be getting the whaling ships back in the water, an undertaking that the company cannot afford without government help.

Once the ships are ready, he wants to hire back the employees. However, he admitted that the waves might have scared some employees away, from both whaling and Ayukawahama.

“If we can fix the ships, then we’re back in business,” said Ito, 74, whose father was also a whaler. “They should not be afraid, because another tsunami like that won’t come for another 100 years.”

Other residents were similarly undaunted. Akimoto, the occasional whaler, who came with a friend to see the ruined company, said the town needed to resume whaling as soon as possible to lift its spirits.

He said the year would be a sad one because the town would miss the April hunting season, during which coastal whalers like Ayukawa Whaling are allowed to take 50 minke whales under Japan’s controversial whaling program, which is ostensibly for research. Ayukawahama and the other three whaling communities — among them Taiji, made infamous by the movie “The Cove” — hunt only in coastal waters. Japan’s better-known whaling in the Antarctic is conducted by the government.

Akimoto said April was usually the town’s most festive month, especially when large whales were brought ashore. He said he would miss that feeling this year.

Added his friend, Tatsuya Sato, 20, “We are so hungry that if they brought a whale ashore now, the whole town would rush down to eat it.”

Many older residents compared the food shortages created by the tsunami with the hard-tack years after World War II, when Japan’s whaling industry boomed as a provider of scarce protein.

Those were the glory days of Ayukawahama, when the population swelled to more than 10,000 and whaling crews swaggered down streets that bustled with crowds drawn by cabarets and movie theaters. Today, Ayukawahama plays up its whaling history for tourists. Smiling cartoon whales adorn shop fronts and even manhole covers. The town also built its own whaling museum, which was gutted by the tsunami.

While no one expects a return to Ayukawahama’s postwar golden era, some wistfully hoped that whale meat could once more come to the rescue. Seiko Taira said that food shortages here were particularly acute because the tsunami washed out roads, cutting off Ayukawahama for several days. She said she had neglected to store her own food, and was reduced to feeding her four children and one grandchild a single cup of instant ramen noodles and a few pieces of bread per day.

Taira, 54, said she had grown so desperate that she scavenged the tsunami wreckage for food. On Thursday, picking through the debris near the site of Ayukawa Whaling’s office, her 17-year-old daughter, Yumi, found a can of whale meat. She proudly held up the prize to her mother.

“I wish we could eat whale meat every day,” said Taira, who worked as caregiver for the elderly before the wave hit. “But the whalers are so old, I think they’ll just quit or retire after what happened.

“I think whaling is dead here,” she added.

Shin Okada, an official in the disaster-response office, said the town had its hands full bringing in more food and finding shelter for the homeless. He said officials had not had time to think about steps to revive the fishing and whaling industries.

On a plaza in front of the whaling museum, Shinobu Ankai struggled to remove the wheels from his overturned car, which had been deposited there by the tsunami. He did not want them to be stolen by the same people who drained the gas tank.

Like many older men in town, he is a retired whaler, and he spoke of hunts that once ranged from Alaska to the Antarctic. However, he said, whaling was in a terminal decline even before the tsunami.

“There was Sea Shepherd, and now this,” he said, referring to the American environmental group, which has sought to block Japan’s whaling in the Antarctic. “Whaling is finished.”

© 2011 The New York Times Company