‘I will not stop searching until I find all of her remains’ These are the heartbreaking words of 51-year-old Norio Kimura, a man whose daughter Yuna, then 7, went missing during the tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Seven years after the disaster, family members in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures are still searching and identifying the bodies of those who went missing, and as time goes on they have fewer clues to work with. Relatives try to bring closure to their loss, years after the disaster that killed nearly 16,000 people along Japan’s northeastern coast and left more than 2,500 missing. Kimura, who lost his father, wife and daughter in the 2011 tsunami, searches for his missing younger daughter Yuna near his home inside the exclusion zone in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture. Every month, Kimura returns to Okuma in search of Yuna’s remains, looking through piles of debris of dirt mixed with driftwood, blocks of concrete, utility poles and clothes of all sizes and colors on Okuma beach for any signs of his daughter. He is allowed to enter only one area of Okuma for up to a maximum 30 visits a year and stay for up to five hours per visit due to it being restricted because of the high radiation levels. In Fukushima Prefecture, a number of areas are still designated as no-go zones due to high radiation levels caused by the reactor meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Police in the coastal area also play an important role in search efforts, by checking DNA samples and dental charts against the remains, for positive identification. Fukushima family members continue today to look for the bodies of their loved ones as they try to bring closure to their loss.
