Children of the Tsunami

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,

100 miles south of Okawa 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.

26 hours after the tsunami,

the government issued an evacuation order

to everyone living within 12 miles of the plant.

Over the next two days, 80,000 people abandoned their homes.

The government imposed a 12-mile exclusion zone,

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 30 miles from the plant.

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,

100 miles north, where 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.

12-year-old Koharu was in the sixth year.

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

100 miles north of Fukushima,

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

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd