Original subtitles

WAVES

(music and waves)

This is the story of the Japanese tsunami

and the nuclear disaster which followed,

told through the eyes of children.

SOFT AMBIENT MUSIC

The Tsunami struck on a Friday afternoon,

just before the end of the school day.

It destroyed dozens of schools,

along two hundred 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.

SOUNDS OF CHILDREN PLAYING

10 year old twins Soma and Fuka were in the 4th year.

WAVES

The earthquake which produced the tsunami struck at 2:46

in the afternoon on the 11th of March

The earthquake measured 9 on the the Richter scale

and lasted more than two minutes.

WAVES CRASHING

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.

WATER CRASHING

Now the Tsunami headed for Okawa,

the school furthest inland.

DRIPPING SOUNDS

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 near by bridge.

EERIE MUSIC

THREATING MUSIC

In the space of half an hour

the tsunami laid waste to two hundred miles

of Japan's Pacific coastline,

and claimed 19000 lives.

ROARING WAVES CRASHING

As the tsunami subsided,

a hundred miles south of Okawa Primary School

in Fukushima

another calamity was unleashed.

The tsunami had knocked out the cooling system

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.

BIRD CROWS

26 hours after the tsunami,

the goverment 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 goverment imposed

a 12 mile exclusion zone,

sealing off the plant

and the now empty towns

from the outside world

10 year old Rikku is from Tomioka,

a town deep inside 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.

CHILDREN SINGING

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.

REACTOR HUMMING

10 year old Saki's bedroom window

looks out over the exclusion zone.

PLAYING INSTRUMENT

Saki's home town

lies beyond the barrier.

PLAYING INSTRUMENT

GEIGER COUNTER CLICKING

CHILDREN SINGINGAND PLAYING

For the children of Fukushima,

learning about the dangers of radiation

has become part of growing up.

As part of a long term experiment,

every child in Fukushima

has been asked to carry a dosimeter,

which records their exposure to radiation.

CHILD SHOUTING

BEEPING GEIGER COUNTER

CHILDREN SINGING

Good morning everyone.

How are you?

Today we have a nice day.

SCHOOLCHILDREN SINGING

CHILDREN SINGING

CHILDREN PLAYINGAND LAUGHING

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.

Akaka'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 is was

before the accident.

While the children of Fukushima adapted to a new way of living,

a hundred miles north where the tsunami hit hardest,

nearly 4000 of its victims were still missing.

MACHINERY SOUNDS

At Okawa Primary School On the Kitakami River,

10 teachers and 74 children died that Friday afternoon

Two months after the tsunami,

6 children and 1 teacher were still missing.

When the authorities scaled down there efforts.

Naomi and a few other parents carried on searching

While a handful of parents look for their children's remains,

others were searching for an explanation.

The school authorities had delayed 4 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

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.

8 year old Kosei was evacuated to his grandmothers house

in Minamisoma, the town next to the exclusion zone.

The house is close to Fukushima hills,

where radiation is high.

PIANO PLAYING

To a ten year old from a small town in the exclusion zone,

the emergency housing camps are an alien world.

7 year old Mutsumi

shares a two room housing unit with her sisters

Megumi and Manami.

A hundred miles north of Fukushima,

Naomi's search for her daughter has ended

six months after the tsunami.

MACHINEARY SOUNDS

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 burried

in shallow pits, under the playground.

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 nuclear exclusion

zone are still waiting for permission to go home

SINGING

SINGING

SEABIRDS/MUSIC/HEAVY MACHINERY

MUSIC

MUSICAL CRESCENDO