Yasuo Takamatsu missing his wife, Yuko, in the 2011 Japanese tsunami, but 11 several years on he however goes diving to locate her every single week.
Mr Takamatsu took up scuba diving in 2013 in a desperate try to come across his wife’s physique following she went missing in Onagawa, just one of the country’s worst strike regions.
An underwater earthquake off the east coastline of Japan triggered the devastating Tōhoku tsunami on March 11, 2011, leaving practically fifty percent a million homeless and killing just about 20,000 men and women.
The loving partner mentioned he will carry on searching on land and sea ‘as extensive as [his body] moves.’
Additional than 2,500 people are still documented as lacking from the tsunami.
Mr Takamatsu speaks with The AP at Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan in 2021
Yuko Takamatsu was at work clearing debris from the first earthquake when the tsunami hit
Yasuo Takamatsu prepares to acquire a diving lesson at Takenoura bay, northern Japan, in 2014
Mr Takamatsu pictured following using up diving in 2013 to extend the search for his missing spouse
Mr Takamatsu recovered his wife’s phone in the parking large amount of the lender wherever she worked months following the disaster, but has not observed everything considering the fact that.
He claimed the plan of surviving and not looking for his wife was ‘depressing’.
Just after searching on land for two and a 50 % a long time, the then-56-yr-previous started out getting diving lessons in September 2013.
Mr Takamatsu’s wife was at function when the tsunami strike the mainland.
Yoku Takamatsu was clearing particles from the original earthquake devastation when the tsunami swept by.
In her previous textual content concept to her husband, Yuko wrote ‘Are you okay? I want to go household.’
Months later on, her cellphone was recovered with an unsent message: ‘The tsunami is disastrous.’
Mr Takamatsu, who uncovered his wife’s mobile phone adhering to the tsunami, nonetheless dives weekly
Takamatsu, now 65, received his diving license in 2013 and has been searching weekly at any time considering the fact that
Tsunami waves hitting the Minamisoma coastline in Fukushima prefecture on 11 March 2011
Mr Takamatsu, a bus driver, previously claimed he did not choose to diving obviously – but that contemplating about his spouse had ‘driven’ him into the water.
‘I do want to uncover her, but I also come to feel that she could by no means be found out as the ocean is way also large – but I have to keep on the lookout.’
All through each individual dive, Mr Takamatsu hoists a scuba diving tank on to his again, wears a rubber dry-accommodate and techniques into the freezing ocean with the assist of diving instructor, Masayoshi Takahashi.
Mr Takahashi, who sales opportunities volunteer dives to look for missing tsunami victims, explained he believed it was essential to help Mr Takamatsu obtain his spouse.
The remote region north of Onagawa, Japan, near in which Yuko Takamatsu was very last sighted
138000 buildings have been ruined among the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima meltdown
The outbreak of the unparalleled Fantastic East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011
Mr Takamatsu, who had been with his mother-in-legislation at a medical center in the future town at the time, was not allowed to return the wrecked town, which was by then a seething, bobbing mass of properties, fishing boats and cars and trucks.
Nevertheless, when the obstacles ended up lifted the upcoming working day, he went to Onagawa’s healthcare facility, which sits on a hilltop, as the selected evacuation web-site the place hundreds had fled shortly soon after the massive quake.
It was there that he realized the bank employees, which includes his spouse, had been swept away.
‘I felt my knees buckling. I felt absolutely nothing in my body,’ he mentioned.
The catastrophe, with a magnitude of 9.1, was the worst to at any time hit Japan and the fourth most devastating in human heritage.
