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Fukushima five years on: Searching for loved ones

(Agencies) Updated: 2016-03-11 10:46 Comments


Fukushima five years on: Searching for loved ones
A shoe (C) that Yuna Kimura, a daughter of Norio Kimura, 50, who lost his father, wife and daughter in the March 11, 2011 tsunami, was wearing on the day of the disaster, is seen at a temple near Kimura's home inside the exclusion zone in Okuma, near Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Feb 14, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Norio Kimura, who lived 3 km south of the plant, had to choose between staying behind to search for his father, wife and younger daughter Yuna, or taking his mother and elder daughter away from spreading radiation.

"I was torn by having to abandon my search and leave them behind... By the time I came back, the situation had become quite grim when it comes to finding them alive," Kimura, 50, said.

The accident still hampers Kimura's effort to find Yuna, the last family member missing, as entry into half of his hometown, Okuma, is restricted due to high radiation levels.

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