This is the story of the Japanese tsunami
and the nuclear disaster which followed,
told through the eyes of children.
The tsunami struck on a Friday afternoon
just before the end of the school day.
It destroyed dozens of schools
along 200 miles of Japan's
north-east coast.
All the schools evacuated to
high ground except for one.
Okawa Primary School,
more than two miles inland
by the Kitakami River.
Ten-year-old twins Soma and
Fuka were in the fourth year.
The earthquake which produced the tsunami
struck at 2:46pm on 11th March.
The earthquake measured
nine on the Richter Scale
and lasted more than two minutes.
Before hitting Okawa Primary,
the tsunami would destroy two
other schools closer to the sea.
The first stood by the river
mouth, looking out over the ocean.
The teachers at this school led the
children to safety on higher ground.
Now the tsunami surged
up the Kitakami River,
engulfing a second primary school.
Teachers and children at this
school escaped to the roof.
Now the tsunami headed for Okawa,
the school furthest inland.
More than half-an-hour had
passed since the earthquake.
Around 100 children were still
in the playground, waiting.
The teachers were debating
whether to go up the hill
behind the school, used
as a nature trail...
or head for the nearby bridge.
In the space of half-an-hour,
the tsunami laid waste to 200 miles
of Japan's Pacific coastline
and claimed 19,000 lives.
As the tsunami subsided,
Primary School, in Fukushima,
another calamity was unleashed.
The tsunami had knocked
out the cooling systems
at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
Nuclear fuel in three of its
reactors began to melt down.
As the power company struggled
to regain control of the plant,
one of the reactors exploded.
Two days after the first, a
second explosion released
a cloud of radioactive dust
high into the atmosphere.
the government issued an evacuation order
to everyone living within
Over the next two days, 80,000
people abandoned their homes.
The government imposed a
sealing off the plant and the now
empty towns from the outside world.
Ten-year-old Rikku is from Tomioka,
a town deep in the exclusion zone.
It could be decades before
children can go back to Tomioka.
Radioactive contamination didn't stop
at the boundary of the exclusion zone
which was an arbitrary line
drawn by the authorities.
It spread throughout the
wider Fukushima area,
creating ghost towns up to
Many families with children
fled to distant parts of Japan.
But some, reluctant to
leave their home area,
evacuated no further than Minamisoma,
the city on the very edge
of the exclusion zone.
Children from the exclusion zone
were absorbed into Minamisoma's schools.
THEY SING IN JAPANESE
The children of the exclusion
zone exist in a kind of limbo,
waiting for the authorities
to decide when or if
they can return to their homes.
The nuclear accident took
away not just their homes
but their communities and
most of their friends.
In the meantime, they've had to
adapt to a strange, new world
in the shadow of the stricken reactor.
Ten-year-old Saki's bedroom window
looks out over the exclusion zone.
SHE PLAYS MUSIC
Saki's home town lies beyond the barrier.
BEEPING
For the children of
Fukuskima, learning about
the dangers of radiation has
become part of growing up.
As part of a long-term experiment,
every child in Fukushima's been
asked to carry a dosimeter
which records their exposure to radiation.
BEEPING
CHILDREN SINGING
BEEPING
Good morning, everyone.
How are you?
Please have a nice day.
THEY SING
Ayaka is an evacuee from the exclusion zone
but she has nowhere to go back to.
Her family home was
destroyed by the tsunami.
All that's left are the foundations.
Ayaka's grandfather was at
home when the tsunami came.
At weekends, Ayaka is
allowed to play outside,
but only once her father has checked
the radiation in the street.
Radioactivity in Ayaka's street,
measured in microsieverts,
is 15 to 20 times what it
was before the accident.
While the children of Fukushima
adapted to a new way of living,
the tsunami hit hardest
nearly 4,000 of its victims
were still missing.
At Okawa Primary School
on the Kitakami River,
ten teachers and 74 children
died that Friday afternoon.
Two months after the tsunami,
six children and one teacher
were still missing.
When the authorities
scaled down their efforts,
Naomi and a few other parents
carried on searching.
While a handful of parents looked
for their children's remains,
others were searching for an explanation.
The school authorities had delayed
four weeks before meeting
with bereaved parents to
explain what went wrong.
There were 11 teachers at Okawa
School when the tsunami hit.
One survived - Junji Endo.
HE BANGS SHOE ON TABLE
PARENTS SOB
As the crisis at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant wore on,
children from the exclusion zone
were left wondering when, if ever,
they'd be able to return home.
Eight-year-old Kosei was evacuated
to his grandmother's house
in Minamisoma, the town
next to the exclusion zone.
The house is close to the Fukushima Hills,
where radiation is high.
MUSIC: "Fur Elise" by Ludwig Van Beethoven
PLAYS FUR ELISE FALTERINGLY
To a 10-year-old from a small
town in the exclusion zone,
the emergency housing
camps are an alien world.
Seven-year-old Mutsumi shares
a two-room housing unit
with her sisters, Megumi and Manami.
THEY GIGGLE PLAYFULLY
Naomi's search for her daughter has
ended, six months after the tsunami.
Since the accident, evacuees from
the Fukushima exclusion zone
have been granted two brief
visits to their homes.
Visits are strictly limited to four hours.
Evacuees must enter and exit the exclusion
zone through a special facility.
Cars and belongings are screened
for radiation when they return.
In Minamisoma, the city
next to the exclusion zone,
school playgrounds are being decontaminated
by removing two inches of topsoil
and replacing it with clean sand.
The radioactive topsoil is then buried
in shallow pits under the playgrounds.
No-one knows when or if radiation
will cause physical illness
in the children of Fukushima.
But the psychological impact of the
disaster is being felt already.
Nine months after the tsunami,
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant was finally shut down.
But the 80,000 people
from the exclusion zone
are still waiting for
permission to go home.
CHILDREN SING
CHILDREN SING