Japan: The next wave

We investigate the long-term effects of the 2011 tsunami, including a potential cancer threat for Fukushima's children.



On March 11, 2011, the ground trembled and the sea engulfed the coastal towns in Japan's Fukushima prefecture. The earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear disaster which became synonymous with the infamous Chernobyl and Three-Mile accidents.

Today, spacious luxury neighbourhoods have been dramatically transformed into decaying ghost towns, a scene from a post-apocalypse movie. And two years on, while the country struggles to rebuild itself, many say the crisis is far from over.

On a stretch of lonely beach in the heavily contaminated no-go zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, one man is on a lonely mission. His seven-year-old daughter is the only person unaccounted for after a five-storey tsunami crushed the nearby town of Okuma in March 2011. The authorities stopped looking for her long ago, but Norio Kimura has not and never will. It is unlikely he will find his little girl and yet he trudges on, looking for clues. Among the pieces he has found is a shoe he says belonged to his dead child.