B/W montage. Japanese tsunami/ Chernobyl/Three Mile Island

00:00

WILLACY: It's been more than two and a half years since the earth shook and the waves came, and like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Fukushima became an infamous place name for nuclear cataclysm.

00:04

Music

00:17

Japan. Clean up operations

00:22

Willacy looking at footage on phone

WILLACY: It's been a huge and devastating drama but it's fair to say it's been the defining story during my time here in Japan.

00:26

Archive footage. Willacy report after tsunami

[archive footage]: "As you can see it picked up this giant fishing trawler and just dumped it on the dock".

00:37

I've witnessed the awesome natural power of the earth and sea.

00:41

[archive footage]: "Thousands are dead here there's no doubt about it. It's just a matter of trying to find the victims but I'd imagine that the vast majority will never be found".

00:48

Fukushima clean up

I've been stunned by brazen and often clumsy efforts to cover up and lie about the effects and extent of the radioactive damage.

00:58

[archive footage]: "But a company that was once regarded as a champion of industry is now denounced around here as a wrecker of homes and livelihoods and a symbol of corporate greed and cover ups".

001:11

Archival. Excerpt from Boy on the Bike story

And amid the loss I've also seen some happy endings.

01:24

Music

01:32

Willacy suits up in protective clothing

WILLACY: And as I prepare to head back in one last time before I leave this posting, it's abundantly clear many aspects of this epic, unfolding tragedy are yet to be written - the nuclear fallout will see to that.

01:41

Travelling to Fukushima

This will be my 23rd trip to Fukushima since the disaster and my 5th time inside the no-go zone, so I know the drill - and like previous visits it'll be fleeting, necessarily so.

01:58

Driving into the no-go zone

 "Well we've just crossed through the checkpoint into the nuclear no go zone, that's the 20 kilometre exclusion area around the shattered Fukushima reactors. And we, like the people who used to live here, are only allowed in for five hours. That's because the radiation levels are still very high".

02:19

Okuma

Music

02:44

This is Okuma - once home to eleven thousand people. Now it could easily be the set of a Japanese science-fiction movie. Here, in a well-to-do part of town, spacious new homes are abandoned and empty and are starting to decay.

02:53

Willacy walking in Okuma

Cars remain where they were parked in 2011. A town that once thrived on the jobs and power of the nuclear plant next door is now a post-apocalyptic radioactive ghost town,

03:18

Norio walking with flowers to grave

one with a very determined ghost hunter.

NORIO KIMURA: ""Because the body of Yuna has not yet been found I come here to search. I always have inner conflict. Some say what I am doing is a self  destructive act. Even though I can't find her now, if I never find her, I'll always feel sad.

03:43

Norio

I am determined to find her, but frankly speaking this is more for myself".

04:14

Norio and Willacy walk along beach

WILLACY: Norio Kimura is on a dogged, one-man mission improbable - to find the remains of his seven year old daughter - the only tsunami victim from Okuma still not accounted for.

04:25

NORIO KIMURA: "This is where I can come to feel closer to my three dead family members. If possible, I want to return here before I die".

04:44

WILLACY: On the 11th of March 2011 a tsunami five storeys high crashed over this shoreline. It destroyed every home in this seaside suburb of Okuma town, triggered meltdowns at the nuclear plant just 2 kilometres up the coast,

04:57

Kimura family photo

and it swept away three of Norio Kimura's family.

05:14

Norio

NORIO KIMURA: "We are allowed to return home once a month. And because the body of Yuna has not been found yet I come here to search.

05:20

Photo. Yuna

I am determined to find her.

05:30

Norio and Willacy walk along beach

Yuna's name comes from the sea. It means calm ocean".

05:38

WILLACY: Norio Kimura and his elder daughter Mayu were on higher, safer ground - the rest of his family were not.

05:46

Kimura family photos

The body of Norio Kimura's father was recovered shortly after the disaster, while the remains of his wife were later found floating 40 kilometres out in the Pacific.

05:54

Area near Fukushima plant

Despite the high radiation levels here near the plant, he's vowed never to abandon the search for his youngest child Yuna.

06:14

Kimura family photo

NORIO KIMURA: "Even though people tell me that I can't go in because of the radiation, my sense of guilt that I can't find Yuna doesn't go away.

06:24

Norio

I haven't submitted the death notification for Yuna yet. She's the only missing person left from Okuma. It remains that way".

06:38

Seafront. Norio with Man

WILLACY: Norio Kimura will seize upon any lead that presents. As we filmed him, a man combing the coast not far from where Yuna was swept away finds a bone he thinks is human.

06:54

Man gives Norio bone

MAN: "I think you'd better ask the police to investigate this".

NORIO KIMURA: "I don't know what kind of bone it is so I won't rejoice just yet. If it's found to be a human bone it would encourage me to keep searching".

07:10

WILLACY: And as a father trudges on in search of clues to a little girl lost,

07:34

Mothers with young children undergoing radiation tests at hospital

the mothers of Fukushima are holding on ever so tightly to their little daughters and sons - hoping some things won't be found. Some of the children here at Hirata Hospital weren't even born when the nuclear disaster erupted, but that doesn't mean they're out of harm's way.

07:39

TOMOKO KOIKE: "The people who have information are the authorities. I want them to disclose more information.

08:03

Tomoko

We do not know the real situation. We don't know what's going on.

08:15

Saki and Yuta undergoing radiation test

I can't trust them".

08:24

WILLACY: Tomoko Koike is the mother of 4 year old Saki and 2 year old Yuta who was born just a fortnight before the Fukushima reactors melted down.

08:29

Tomoko

TOMOKO KOIKE: "My children had never contracted influenza before, even without vaccination. But they contracted it last year. Their vulnerability to illness has increased.

08:40

Saki and Yuta undergoing radiation test

When I think about their future I am depressed and often feel anxiety".

WILLACY: Mrs Koike has brought her kids in for yet another series of radiation tests. She's one of many parents worried about thyroid cancer. Her children have already been screened and cleared in tests run by the Fukushima local government -

08:55

but a follow up screening here at the private Hirata Hospital, revealed cysts on the thyroid gland of 4 year old Saki.

TOMOKO KOIKE: "A couple of cysts were found. I was very shocked.

09:24

I don't know whether the examination by the prefecture was sloppy, or that she wasn't examined properly.

09:43

Dr Sugenoya

DR AKIRA SUGENOYA: "When I look at Fukushima now, the number of thyroid cancer cases in people under 18 is quite high. It's happening fast".

09:55

Dr Sugenoya with colleagues

WILLACY: Akira Sugenoya knows not to jump to conclusions over links between the Fukushima radiation and thyroid cancer, but he's deeply concerned by what he's seeing. After all, he's a former thyroid specialist who spent five years

10:03

Photos. Dr Sugenoya examining Chernobyl children

operating on hundreds of Chernobyl children suffering from thyroid cancer.

DR AKIRA SUGENOYA: "I care because I went to Chernobyl and I saw each child so I know the pain they went through".

10:21

Dr Sugenoya  addressing school children

Music

10:34

[addressing school children] "It is very regrettable that the Fukushima nuclear plant accident happened in Japan".

10:39

WILLACY: Now mayor of Matsumoto City, Akira Sugenoya believes Japanese children won't fall victim to thyroid cancer to the same extent as Chernobyl where 6,000 children were found to have contracted thyroid cancer.

10:47

DR AKIRA SUGENOYA: [addressing school children] " I think from now on our problems will increase".

WILLACY: But there's clear evidence rates have risen.

11:01

Before the disaster in 2011, the rate of thyroid cancer was between one and two cases in every million children.

11:07

Now, with about two hundred thousand children screened so far in government ordered tests, there have been 18 confirmed cases of thyroid cancer and 25 suspected cases - an unusually high rate.

11:17

Music

11:34

DR AKIRA SUGENOYA: "The doctors in Fukushima say that it shouldn't be coming out so soon, so it can't be related to the nuclear accident.

11:40

Dr Sugenoya. Super:
Dr Akira Sugenoya

But that's very unscientific, and it's not a reason we can accept".

11:51

Dr Kamata

WILLACY: Other Chernobyl veterans, like doctor of internal medicine, Minoru Kamata, also believe the spike in cases should be thoroughly investigated.

12:00

Super:
Dr Minoru Kamata
Japan Chernobyl Foundation

DR MINORU KAMATA: "The point is what when thyroid cancer was found in a few children last year, the Fukushima health investigation committee immediately declared that it was unrelated to the nuclear accident. That attitude is wrong for a doctor or scientist.

12:11

Yuta undergoing radiation test

I'm saying there might be a relationship - so we should speed up screenings and carry out high quality examinations, which so far are lacking".

12:32

Geraldine Thomas entering laboratory

12:52

WILLACY: Not everyone is worried. Far from Fukushima, Professor Geraldine Thomas is a specialist in the molecular pathology of cancer in Imperial College London.

12:54

Prof Thomas in lab

She also helped establish the Chernobyl Tissue Bank which analyses samples from people exposed to radiation, after the nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

PROFESSOR GERALDINE THOMAS: "Following Fukushima I doubt that there'll be any rise

13:06

Prof Thomas. Super:
Prof Geraldine Thomas
Imperial College London

in thyroid cancers in Japan and this is simply because the amount of radio-iodine that was released post-Fukushima was much, much less than released post-Chernobyl.

13:21

Yuta undergoing radiation test

Absolutely if you look for a problem, especially if you're using incredibly sensitive technique which is what the Japanese are actually doing, you will find something. You will find part of that problem

13:31

Prof Thomas

and you have to be careful you don't over interpret that and worry people unnecessarily".

13:43

Yuta undergoing radiation test

WILLACY: Professor Thomas believes that unnecessary worry and fear has driven parents to make unnecessary choices.

PROFESSOR GERALDINE THOMAS: "And even post-Fukushima some women were having abortions because they were worried.

13:48

Prof Thomas

The radiation would have done nothing to their prospective offspring, but the fear that that radiation was going to do something, tipped them over into having an abortion which nobody likes to know about.

14:047

Megumi with Rui at hospital having thyroid screening

14:15

MEGUMI MATSUMOTO: "While I am alive and my son is alive radiation will not disappear. It will remain. That's what I'm worried about".

14:23

WILLACY: Back at Hirata Private Hospital, another mother Megumi Matsumoto, has brought her 2 year old son Rui in for a thyroid screening.

14:34

MEGUMI MATSUMOTO: "I've never received a notice for a test from the prefectural government so I had to take action by myself and bring my boy here to have a test".

14:44

WILLACY: The critical point about thyroid cancer is that if it's detected early enough, it can almost always be treated successfully so it's important the authorities are transparent upfront. With parents like Megumi Matsumoto they've been anything but candid.

14:54

MEGUMI MATSUMOTO: "I want to believe them but I can't.

15:12

Megumi

I am worried about what will happen in the future".

15:21

Fukushima plant

WILLACY: As so often has been the case as I've covered the Fukushima story, secrecy is the default position of the authorities. The Fukushima government refused our formal requests for age breakdowns and more detailed information concerning thyroid cancer victims since March 2011.

DR AKIRA SUGENOYA: "I don't know why, but they've hidden it.

15:27

Dr Sugenoya. Super:
Dr Akira Sugenoya

They don't show the data clearly so it arouses suspicion.

15:56

Photos. Dr Sugenoya operating/ with Chernobyl children

I'm still very angry. It's because I'm a thyroid specialist I'd like to know what's happening next".

16:08

Dr Kamata. Super:
Dr Minoru Kamata
Japan Chernobyl Foundation

DR MINORU KAMATA: "It was disclosed that the Fukushima health investigation committee was having several secret meetings. Up until now, I feel the response to this issue has been unthinkable for a democratic nation".

16:20

Decontamination efforts

WILLACY: When Fukushima's local governing authorities are not being accused of a cover up, they're being accused of staging very visible, very expensive and very elaborate exercises in futility. Across large open tracts of land and in isolated hotspots, heavy machinery is stripping top soil in an effort to decontaminate the earth. Of course it's an impossible task. This is largely a mountainous and heavily forested region and no one knows precisely where the contamination ends.

16:38

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "Farmers work in the contaminated soil from sunrise to sunset every day.

17:23

Tarukawa

We inhale contaminated dust and I think in five, ten years there will be some kind of effect on the body".

17:35

Tarukawa working on farm

WILLACY: Kazuya Tarukawa grows organic rice, fruit and vegetables on a farm 60 km from the nuclear plant. That's well beyond the no-go zone and yet it's been declared a radiation hotspot.

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "I don't think the soil will ever be the same as before the nuclear accident - not while I'm still alive".

17:58

WILLACY: Tarukawa's family has cultivated this land for eight generations and when the radiation drama unfolded, he was running the place alongside his father.

18:30

Tarukawa

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "My dad often said, if an accident happens, it can't be controlled by human beings and it can't be stopped. Why did the only country in the world that suffered two atomic bombs build so many nuclear plants?

18:41

Explosion at plant

After watching what happened at the Fukushima plant he said, see it happened just as I told you.

19:10

Tarukawa

Japan is a stupid country".

19:21

Tarukawa farm/ Overlay photo Hisashi

WILLACY: In the frenzy of panic and regulation that erupted around the crippled nuclear plant, Kazuya Tarukawa's father Hisashi was banned from taking his harvest to market. With financial pressure mounting, he slipped into a deep depression.

19:28

Willacy to camera

"The morning after being told by the authorities that he could no longer ship or sell his produce, Kazuya Tarukawa's father rose very early. He came out here to look at his crops and to survey his land. It was then he made a fateful decision.

19:45

Crane flying over farm

Music

20:01

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "I woke up and started work again. I went out the back.

20:07

Kazuya

There was a rope slung around a tree and he was hanging there. I gripped his belt and lifted him up and tried to take the rope off his neck but he was too heavy. I went and got my mother and she took the rope off while I lifted his body".

20:16

Tarukawa farm

WILLACY: No sooner had Tarukawa buried his father than the ban on selling the farm's produce was lifted. When testing soon revealed other rice farms in his district had radioactive contamination above the government's safe limit, authorities continued to encourage Tarukawa to keep growing and to keep selling. Tarukawa says while his produce had contamination levels under the government limit, his conscience was still burning.

20:50

Kazuya at local government meeting

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "How do we keep going? Earlier I asked where your dignity went".

WILLACY: He felt complicit in a cover up and angrily confronted local government officials at a district meeting.

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "The consumers assume there is no radiation in the food they buy. What do you say about this? We farmers know better. We feel guilty about growing it and selling it. We won't eat it ourselves, but we sell it". [applause]

21:32

Tarukawa farm

WILLACY: The official advice to sell continues. Local consumers have no idea if the food they're buying eating and feeding their children is ultimately toxic.

22:13

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "To ship produce knowing there's radiation in it, makes me feel like I'm committing crime as a producer".

22:26

Tarukawa family shrine

WILLACY: Tarukawa's father, Hisashi, is one of at least 80 people whose suicide has been recognised by the government as being a direct result of the nuclear meltdowns. And for the first time the nuclear power station's owner, TEPCO, has admitted culpability, conceding that the disaster did play a part in the farmer's death. But it's a shallow concession. TEPCO still won't apologise.

22:42

KAZUYA TARUKAWA: "I want a representative of TEPCO to come here and offer incense sticks before my father's shrine".

23:23

Hakuba landscape

Music

23:50

WILLACY: High in the Japanese northern alps, Hakuba is a dramatically different landscape, a place of stunning forests, soaring mountain peaks and clean fresh air.

24:08

Norio with dog

It's just the way Norio Kimura likes it - far from the poisoned environment and dreadful scarring events of Fukushima.

24:22

Norio at home with Mayu

Norio Kimura is now building a new home for his surviving daughter Mayu. He wants her well away from the radiation and to help her recover, if that's possible, from the loss of her mother and sister.

24:34

Norio cooking

At his mountain home he receives news the small bone found during his recent visit to the no-go zone was not human.

24655

Norio at family chest

It's another setback but his quest goes on, encouraged by earlier finds like this shoe he knows belonged to his younger daughter. It's now a heartbreaking keepsake in a chest of family memories.

25:07

NORIO KIMURA: "It's not something that I can substitute for her. Of course it's a precious thing

25:23

Norio

but it's not something that makes me feel better or glad".

25:38

Norio building deck

Music

25:46

WILLACY: For a man who has suffered and survived natural and nuclear calamity, these are the foundations of a fresh start. But he can never be at peace until his youngest daughter is found.

NORIO KIMURA: "I know it'll be very hard to find Yuna.

25:54

Norio

But I can't stop looking for her. I'll only stop when Yuna is found, or when I die".

26:22

Norio building deck

Music

26:36

Further Information

26:51

Mark Willacy's book Fukushima is now available in some bookstores and online - and is a finalist in Australia's 2013 Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Credits:

Reporter: Mark Willacy

Cameras: Jun Matsuzono, Cameron Bauer

Editor: Nicholas Brenner

Japan producers: Yayoi Eguchi, Yumi Asada

Producer: Ian Altschwager

Executive producer: Steve Taylor