The last message she sent, read, "I want to go home." He said that he will bring her home.
It has been 11 years since Tsunami hit Japan. But the deceased's families haven't stopped searching for their loved ones. One such person is Yasuo Takamatsu. The 64-year-old still goes diving to find his wife's remains in Japan. Do you know what is even more incredible? After the tsunami, he learned to dive just to find her. Yuko, his wife, had gone missing from her workplace in Onagawa. He has gone diving more than 470 times. "It's like going to see her when I think my wife is in the sea. When searching or during regular practices, it feels like she's nearby," Takamatsu told Bloomberg Quicktake.
“I want to bring her home.”
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) March 11, 2021
64-year-old Yasuo Takamatsu is still searching for the remains of his wife who has been missing since the 2011 Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan #10YearsLater #あれから10年 #東日本大震災 pic.twitter.com/CjTtnfKCX5
However, he hasn't found anything from his wife yet. "We found albums, clothes, and other artifacts though I haven't found who they belong to," he added. That's not it. Once a month, he also joins local authorities who go for underwater searches. He said that the people's hearts have "largely healed but the recovery of people’s hearts ... will take time.” He still has faith that he will find the remains of her body. "There is news of remains that have been found. So I think it's important to continue the search without giving up. The last message she sent me, read, 'I want to go home'. I'm sure she wants to come home and I will bring her home. "
"I will go for my wife as long as my body moves," he added. Yasuo, was with his mother-in-law at a hospital in the next town when the natural disaster hit their town. He was not allowed to return to their town, Onagawa until the next day. When he went to Onagawa's hospital, he came to know about his wife's death. "I felt my knees buckling. I felt nothing in my body," he said, according to JOE.
Yuko was at the bank where she worked when the calamity struck. She along with her colleagues was clearing up the damage from the earthquake. Their manager warned them about the tsunami. So they climbed up the roof. They had debated if they had enough time to reach a taller hospital building but finally decided to stay there. They thought the wave would be six feet but the waves were three times bigger. The waves filled half the bank's building so they climbed to an electrical room using a ladder. Unfortunately, the bank was swept away.
A person wrote on Facebook about the bank employees who were desperately wanting to reach safety. "We get a lump in a throat every time we think about the female bankers who, wearing skirts, had to climb the ladder with unimaginable fear, and male bankers who threw off their coats at the last minute regardless of the cold weather, their fear, despair, and regret," according to BBC.
Here's a video that shows how Onagawa, in Miyagi Prefecture, rebuilt the community after the massive tsunami.#10yearslater #東日本大震災10年 #女川町
— SDG2030 (@SDG2030) March 11, 2021
@UNFPAasia @ShinKoyamada @shekharkapur @bts_bighit @Benioff @andersen_inger @MrKRudd
pic.twitter.com/kE2NoLC1MX
In March 2011, one of the biggest earthquakes triggered a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people in Japan. Among them, 2,500 bodies are still missing. The Japanese government has spent $280 billion on reconstruction till now. Reconstruction Minister Katsuei Hirasawa thinks that much more needs to be done to rebuild the lives of people, as reported by Associated Press.
References:
https://twitter.com/Quicktake/status/1369952760532250626
https://apnews.com/article/japan-asia-pacific-tsunamis-earthquakes-815d68e5fec0fcc99f777316254882d3
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33294275
Cover Image Source: YouTube | South China Morning Post
