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00:07Friday, March 11th, 2011, started as a very ordinary day.
00:28There was this big, deep, bass rumbling.
00:37We had no idea what was going on.
00:53And then we were just watching this wave, thinking, oh, my goodness, this is really bad.
01:19At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, one of the workers was handling radioactive waste, and all the lights go
01:28out.
01:38Suddenly, we were at the center of the world's biggest story.
01:48Oh, my goodness.
01:54Oh, my goodness.
02:15So, yeah, I managed to find my portfolio.
02:2025th of January 2011, so about two months before it happened.
02:28I was nine years old.
02:30I was born in Japan.
02:32So even though my mom and dad are French and English, I would say, sort of, in my heart, because
02:36I lived there for 13 years, I was born there, I grew up there, I would say, at heart, I'm
02:41Japanese.
02:47I was the Tokyo bureau chief for the Financial Times newspaper.
02:52I'd been working there for a few years, having been a correspondent in China and Taiwan in the region as
02:59well.
03:01Japan has a very distinct and very interesting society and a very rich culture, so it's a great place to
03:10live and work.
03:16Around 300 kilometers north of Tokyo lies the coastal city of Ishinomaki.
03:27Richard Halberstadt taught English at the university.
03:31I was born in Reading in the UK, but I've lived in Japan for over 30 years now, here in
03:38Ishinomaki City.
03:43Ishinomaki is the very typical small city.
03:49Its main industry is fisheries, and the reason I came to like it is not so much because of the
03:55place, but because of the people who were really warm and welcoming.
04:12приosingш Divis лет
04:12talk.
04:16ap siege
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04:25I was going to go to my house to my house.
04:32I was living in the river from a few hundred meters.
04:36I was living in the river.
04:38I was living in my house.
04:41I was living in my house.
04:43I was living in my house.
05:00They were living in my people.
05:01March 11th is spring vacation for the university.
05:04So we weren't teaching or anything like that.
05:07But for some reason, I don't know why, when I woke up,
05:10I didn't really have much to do with the university
05:12but thought I'd go in anyway.
05:15I'm working in the streets.
05:20I was living in a hospital before the children were coming.
05:44It was just like any other Friday, my brother, he was three years old, I think.
05:51So then he was still going to nursery, I was getting ready for primary school, and my mum would cycle
05:57me.
06:00I loved school a lot. We had karaoke Friday, which was a thing we had in the afternoons that I
06:06was really looking forward to, it was really fun.
06:16It had actually been a fairly quiet period for news in Japan, and one of my colleagues was wondering when
06:23things would heat up again and we'd start getting articles in decent places in the paper.
06:29We had no idea what was going to happen next.
06:37Along the coast, 40 kilometres west of Ishinomaki, is the sprawling city of Sendai.
06:46Weiyu Muroga was preparing for an afternoon, delivering medical supplies.
06:53We had a lot of work on the hospital.
06:57We'd be home with a very close to the hospital.
07:00It was a very close to the hospital, so we had to go to work.
07:06We had to go to work on the hospital.
07:12We had to go to work on the hospital.
07:16So, I used to be able to make a video camera for 24 hours.
07:22It was a high-quality video camera.
07:28I used to set a video camera for the first time.
07:35When I was in the first time,
07:58I was sitting at my desk in our office building on the 21st floor in the Hibiya business district.
08:07And suddenly I felt the rattling and the beginning of the swaying.
08:26It started to tremble, it started to shake.
08:33All the way from nursery we would do drills.
08:35We would practice going underneath the tables, going to frames, like door frames, as a way to protect.
08:44Teacher just said, all right, everyone, there's no desks, no tables in that room.
08:47So just huddle together in the middle of the room and we'll just wait for it to pass.
09:08When the shaking started, then it was just so bad that I had to just clutch hold of my desk
09:17to just stay standing.
09:27All the books were flying off my shelves, which was pretty terrifying.
09:38And when it goes by and it's still continuing to shake and then the trembling gets worse and worse and
09:44stronger.
09:47I had a fan that was above my head and a screw came loose and so it was just flinging
09:53on this one screw that was left.
09:56And I was thinking for myself, I hope that doesn't fall on me.
10:06It was very quickly apparent that this was a powerful earthquake and it was growing in power.
10:24The magnitude 9 earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in Japan.
10:30Local government officer Teruo Okono was working near Ishinomaki.
10:36What was it?
10:45北上総合署という市役所の文書というところで地域振興のお仕事をしていました。
11:03中にいたスタッフの女性スタッフがあまりにも悲鳴が大きくて、机をしがみついて、最終的にしゃがみ込む状態。
11:16中にいたスタッフがあまり経験したことがない揺れで、時間的にはたぶん3分以上は続いていた揺れかなと自分自身はその時思っていました。
11:33김川快適地上で調整全て、公開にしが大きいな体黒の指折と撮影させたの馬鹿。とう
11:34nost之間の神様は大きさを覧になりたいです。 ストレールを振じつつと私たちの中で見られた手を見るときこのようだが、
11:38そして内術ijが他に話すから今ライトに行くことがないという意味です。
11:53we didn't realize how bad this was and how bad it was going to be of course I worried about
12:01my mom
12:02and my dad um but I remember my main worry at the time was my brother um because he was
12:08at nursery
12:10and just you don't know it how your family is you don't know if they're safe if they've been injured
12:23I mean the power of the earthquake was extraordinary and we in Tokyo felt it
12:29as something extraordinary but if you were along the coast much closer to the epicenter
12:35it was for many people absolutely terrifying
12:42and right on that coast sat one of the world's largest nuclear power stations Fukushima Daiichi
12:53decontamination worker Yukio Shirahige was in a building at the edge of the site
12:59oh yeah放射能計るということがメインの仕事になってきましたその時は客先の資材倉庫の中の棚卸しをやっていたと思いますその時に地震が発生したんですねあの地震の予兆とかそういう物は全くなくていきなり揺れが来ました
13:54When the earthquake hit
13:55safety systems automatically shut down the three active reactors.
14:01So very crudely the earthquake caused damage to the plant
14:08but nothing that alone would have caused a crisis.
14:15For example one part is that it destroyed a pylon
14:19and broke the connection that the plant had to the national grid
14:24and it's one of the features of nuclear power plants
14:29of the type used at Fukushima Daiichi
14:32that they need electricity to keep the reactors
14:38and the spent fuel that's kept in cooling ponds cool.
14:44After the chain reaction has stopped
14:47it needs to be cooled down for a long time.
14:52Even though there was no power coming in from outside
14:56there were emergency generators starting to kick in
15:01and providing an electricity to pump in the coolants of the reactor.
15:09With diesel generators keeping the fuel cool
15:12plant operators hoped the worst was over.
15:18But the six minute long quake left the whole country on edge.
15:25When the shaking eventually stopped
15:30I think the teachers were trying to figure out what to do.
15:34I'd asked my teachers if I could be let go
15:36and they said, yeah that's fine.
15:38So I got my bicycle and I started to cycle to my mum's office
15:42to try and find her.
15:46As I'm trying to get up this hill
15:48I just remember feeling this panic of
15:52it doesn't matter if something falls on me
15:54it falls on me
15:55I've just got to get to my mum's office.
15:59I wasn't sitting on my bicycle
16:01I was standing trying to get there as quickly as possible.
16:07Trying to dodge through people
16:08who are coming out into the streets as well
16:11and just feeling this feeling of panic
16:13and I need to get to my mum
16:15I need to get to my mum.
16:22300 kilometres north
16:24in coastal Sendai City
16:28Yu Maroga was still on the road.
16:43The wind was still at where it was,
16:44and he happened to the hill
16:46in the south
16:46I felt it was almost that
16:48it was a lot of times
16:49I felt like there was an in- Katya City
16:50and there was a heart
16:53and the road
16:53was in order to drop
16:54and then the road
16:55and it went down
16:55and nearly everything
16:57and there was a block
17:05and there was a block
17:05that there was some
17:05and there,
17:06There was a lot of rain and rain.
17:15The big earthquake was still shaking.
17:20I felt that there was a lot of concern.
17:36that we had no idea what was going on.
17:40And I didn't really have a chance to be worried about anyone
17:45because everything was just happening all at the same time.
17:49And it was all so surreal
17:50that we were kind of just more occupied with coping for ourselves.
17:56Ryoko Endo was on the fifth floor of the hospital.
18:17My mom's office is on the fourth floor of the office building.
18:24My mom's office is on the fourth floor of the office building.
18:36But the lifts aren't working so I was running up the stairs and I remember just bursting
18:42into her office.
18:45It was such a relief to see her.
18:48I just ran straight into her arms and I think I just cried.
18:54We cycled home together and I remember seeing my brother and that feeling of thank goodness
19:03he's alright.
19:08The earthquake's epicentre was traced to the ocean floor, around 80 kilometres east
19:14of Ishinomaki.
19:17So the immediate aftermath of the earthquake for us was realising that we were actually
19:25not at the centre of it.
19:28And as soon as the Japanese television was reporting as they did quite quickly that the
19:38epicentre was off the coast, then it became possible that a damaging tsunami could be on
19:46the way.
19:50We were all gathered together first in the university canteen.
19:56And then when the tsunami warning was issued then that meant we should get to higher ground.
20:09So we all moved to a big classroom on the third floor.
20:15So I thought there was so much happening that it wasn't really my head couldn't cope with everything
20:21that was going on really.
20:45As a journalist, I don't want bad things to happen.
20:52I like reporting good news, but it was always in the back of my mind that it might be on
20:59my
20:59watch that a very large disaster might happen.
21:06One of the first things we did was to switch on the television and see what on earth was going
21:11on.
21:12Because for all we knew in that moment was that we had an earthquake.
21:16But what we didn't realise was that it was so big that then it had caused a tsunami.
21:28And that's when I remember just seeing the wave making its way to that northern coast, thinking,
21:39oh my goodness, this is, this is really bad.
21:42Oh my goodness, this is really bad.
22:06In Sendai, Yumorogo was driving across town.
22:10More than two kilometers from the coast.
22:41More than two kilometers from the coast.
22:55And it was a bit of a wave coming up.
23:02It was the wave that happened to be on the road.
23:03And I thought it was the wave that was going on during the start of the storm.
23:04I thought it was going on and we were going on a few minutes.
23:07But I thought it was going on, I thought it was going on the road.
23:10I felt that my car was slowly passing by.
23:15When my car was coming back,
23:18I felt that I could hit the front of my car.
23:24I felt that I could die.
23:56The tsunami struck a long swathe of Japan's east coast.
24:02Swamping harbours, rivers and low-lying areas.
24:44I was still thinking we might be reporting mainly on deaths from falling buildings.
24:53But from the reports that were coming through from Japanese media, it was clear that the
25:00tsunami was likely to be the real killer here.
25:10Near Ishinomaki, Teruo Okono was sheltering in his office a few hundred meters from the coast.
26:16The panels of the panels are broken, and the windows are broken, and the windows are broken.
26:30The building has a very strange movement of the building.
26:37When I was in the middle of the building, I realized that I was running out of the building.
26:41In the middle of the door, there was a lot of water in the middle of the door, and there
26:48was a lot of black waves that came to us.
26:58As a matter of fact, it was the end of the war.
27:01When you were thrown out of the war, you were thrown into the band.
27:09I remember how much of a gun came out.
27:14I can't remember what I was thinking about.
27:30My car was the weight of the weight of the weight of the weight.
27:35I was in the car as well, so it was almost no to me.
27:45I was trying to protect the car in the car and the car in the pocket.
27:55I was surprised that I was able to protect the car, or I was able to get the car on
28:00top.
28:03I was surprised that I was in the head of the car that was started.
28:14The car was in the back of the car, and it was in the back of the car.
28:36The window from the window, the water came into the window, so I thought it would be impossible for a
28:42car.
28:44So I grabbed the window from the window, so I got out of the window from the window.
28:49and I came out from the air.
28:58I thought it was impossible to do this.
29:00I thought it was amazing.
29:01I thought it was just a cold,
29:04and it was like a cold water.
29:08It was so cold.
29:10I thought it was impossible.
29:17I had a feeling that I was drinking water and I had a feeling that I was drinking water.
29:24I was thinking that I was trying to do something else, and I was thinking that I was drinking water.
29:32I was drinking water and I was drinking water for 5 or 10 minutes.
29:37I'm a little bit frustrated.
29:39I've had a lot of energy that I haven't been able to do so.
29:46I don't know if we're going to walk alone.
29:48But I think I've got fudges to be a bit.
29:58I don't know if we're going to walk alone.
30:00I don't know if we're going to walk alone.
30:04I don't know how to walk alone.
30:05I can't see it in the air.
30:09I was able to move my hand and my body from my hand and my feet.
30:15It was really difficult.
30:18I was probably going to die.
30:22I was talking about my family and my family.
30:26I was talking about my family's face.
30:30I was talking about my hands and my hands and my body was moving.
30:37I was trying to figure out how to move my body.
30:39I was trying to figure out how to move my body.
30:48When I was talking about my body, I was just trying to figure out how to move my body.
31:00and then I got to go to the bottom of my head.
31:04Then, I got to go,
31:07I got to go,
31:08and I got to go.
31:14I got to go,
31:19I got to go,
31:19I got to go,
31:21After that, he was picking up the house and told me that it was a friend of my school.
31:29He changed my house and told him that he was my father.
31:38This building was closer to the building of Suzuki-san.
31:44I was about to draw a lot of his words.
31:49I was trying to catch the building of Suzuki-san.
31:58I was trying to close it up.
32:17Thousands had drowned, and thousands more were missing.
32:26There are many stories of people who had lost loved ones,
32:36and it's very likely because those loved ones had been trying to look after each other or trying to find
32:42them, rather than just fleeing.
32:45And that's a kind of very human dilemma.
32:54There were people who were having to stand by very close to their neighbours,
33:01sometimes their loved ones being washed out to sea without anything they could do to save them.
33:13Ryoko Endo hadn't heard from her husband or her three children since before the earthquake.
33:21It was said to me, and I was asked to go back to the hospital.
33:26We had a hard time in the hospital, but we had a hard time to get into the hospital.
33:32The hospital was stopped, and then the hospital was abandoned.
33:39We were away from the hospital in the hospital.
34:00While Ryoko waited for news, further south, Fukushima Daiichi was also directly in the path of the tsunami.
34:09Yukio Shirahige was sheltering on the ground.
34:11On the land side of the site.
35:02Fukushima Daiichi was protected by a five and a half meter high tsunami defense wall.
35:09You know, tsunami is not just like a wave.
35:13It is like a rise of the sea level with a very strong force.
35:19So tsunami came over the defense shield, flowed into the power plant,
35:28pushed away all the cars and the other installations around the reactor,
35:35and then it hit the reactor building.
35:42No one knew if the plant could survive a direct hit.
35:51Meanwhile, the extent of the damage to coastal communities was dawning on residents,
35:56like social worker Mizuei Kano.
36:02I worked in Okuma Station, from 4km to 4km.
36:08I realized that it was difficult.
36:10It was difficult for me to have to have a pic of toilets.
36:16I knew what was due to the disaster.
36:17We managed to go out on дорогs.
36:18That's the case.
36:22We also had to be exposed to the disaster usually for the tsunami,
36:24and I was surprised that it was on the boat's ships.
36:25The whole Muss- 스타일 has fallen into the ship
36:26And that the nineteenuckles of the map was heavily collapsed.
36:26We didn't have to be able to call.
36:27And that even worse, I thought we were in the same way,
36:32I didn't know the ship.
36:33I thought, when I was very comfortable it.
36:39100 kilometers north, residents of coastal cities like Sendai and Ishinomaki
36:45were facing a freezing night without power.
36:50The whole central area of the city had been flooded
36:54and that meant I couldn't get back into the central area
36:57either to where I live or to anywhere else I wanted to go.
37:01So I ended up just sleeping at the university
37:05with many of the other staff.
37:09Yuh-Muroga took refuge in a warehouse above his wrecked van.
37:15There were a lot of waves that were in the middle of the city.
37:21There were a lot of waves that were in the middle of the city.
37:24There were a lot of waves that were in the middle of the city.
37:26But it was very cold.
37:30As I hoped it would be aáriz that was very warm.
37:41It was so horrible that the city was in the middle of the city.
38:11They hated sleeping and going to sleep
38:15Because at least if I were awake
38:18Then I could quickly move or find my parents or get to safety
38:26And so when aftershocks would happen in the middle of the night
38:29I'd have to run down the corridor to find my parents
38:32But I always had this sense of anxiety
38:38And it started to get worse and worse
38:41And even through all of that I've always wanted to protect my brother
38:47I think even though I've overcome all the events
38:56Thinking about him is still the thing that gets me the most upset I think
39:02I don't know
39:15Teruo Kono woke up in the house where the tsunami had dropped him
39:24When the tsunami was released in the morning
39:28I was in the middle of the night
39:33The fear of the calmness
39:35The fear of the calmness
39:40I had to be in the middle of the night
39:44The fear of the calmness
39:46The fear of the calmness
39:50I don't know what sounds like.
39:53I don't know what sounds like.
39:56I don't know if there were many different things.
40:00I heard the world that I heard from my ears.
40:02It was a beautiful world.
40:06It was a beautiful world.
40:11There were many people who were looking to find their family.
40:20When the tsunami came, they would get away from their family.
40:33So I was able to get rid of the water from the bottom of the top.
40:35My mom was a little bit of water from the top of the top.
40:42My friends were 13 people and were on the back of the top.
40:47So I started walking.
40:51It was broken down, and the road was divided.
40:56I don't know where the road was.
40:58Then, everyone said,
41:00I'm going to go home.
41:10Financial Times Bureau Chief Muir Dicki headed for the disaster zone.
41:17We have a responsibility as a journalist to report the big stories as best we can,
41:24and I felt that we needed to go to the area.
41:27It was very challenging to get there,
41:30but that was proud to be on the ground to see what's really happening to people.
41:35Here behind me is a sign out there to show visitors and residents of this area
41:40that beyond that point is at risk of tsunami flooding.
41:44But the waters this time came far, far further.
41:50The earthquake had caused relatively little damage to property,
41:59but it was relative normality compared to the sudden shock.
42:07If you came down off the hills towards the coast,
42:10you could see a line drawn across the land,
42:15and on one side of it where the tsunami had hit, just absolute devastation.
42:20It looked to me, and to many other people who saw it,
42:26as if we had walked into the kind of scene that you see in old newsreel of the Hiroshima or
42:36Nagasaki after the nuclear bomb,
42:37and that kind of levelling of whole towns.
42:43The evidence is everywhere of the incredible power of the tsunami.
42:47Buildings have been mashed and mangled beyond repair.
42:50Trucks picked up, carried distances, and then dropped on piles of debris.
42:53Those who didn't flee in time had little chance.
43:02Those who could fled the devastation.
43:06Including Mizue, who was heading for her family farmhouse in the hills.
43:11There were a lot of cars in there, and the ones who could send gas.
43:22The wind has been here all the time for a long run,
43:25so the insurge engine was locked on the road, and the car was just a bridge.
43:31The water that pumped across the mountain was流ished by the mountain,
43:35It was all ice burn, but I had a really scared feeling.
43:44Finally, Mizue reached the safety of her farmhouse, but the nightmare was far from over.
44:10My colleague and I were driving into southern Fukushima prefecture.
44:17We weren't actually in communication with the outside world.
44:22And we went through an area which did have mobile signal.
44:29And I saw my BlackBerry light up with multiple messages from editors in Hong Kong saying,
44:39Call, call, call.
44:40So I rang and I heard the line which felt like something out of movie.
44:47They said, there's been an explosion at the nuclear plant.
44:50Turn the car around and drive south.
45:04It was a sort of a Chernobyl moment.
45:07My view was that, oh, this is not the worst case yet.
45:13There was a lot of fear in Japan.
45:17People were scared.
45:20The Prime Minister was scared.
45:24I've never seen a gas mask.
45:29I was wearing a great防護服.
45:31I was wearing a good防護服.
45:37If this were to be a really significant release of radio activity,
45:41would you have to evacuate Tokyo?
45:44The news on the radio was talking about the Fukushima reactor,
45:48but we were so busy trying to look after ourselves.
45:52He was just crying and shouting.
45:55And I couldn't do anything for him.
45:58I was at school, but I didn't see the children's姿.
46:03I was wondering if I didn't see a lot of people,
46:06but I didn't know anyone else.
46:13It was because of the weather.
46:21I couldn't wait until the letters.
46:23Look, he's still there.
46:34I couldn't have no axe.
46:35Anyway, there's a plan.
46:39You
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