“Are you OK? I want to go home.” These were the last words Yasuo Takamatsu heard from his wife, Yuko, whom he has been searching for relentlessly ever since she was lost forever to the waters of the 2011 tsunami that ravaged Japan.
First on land and then on sea, he’s gone diving every week for the past 13 years, hoping to get some closure and be able to honor the remains of his lost loved one.
The man was in the next town visiting his mother-in-law, who was hospitalized when the disaster hit. Due to the extent of the destruction, which resulted in over 450,000 families losing their homes, Takamatsu couldn’t return to look for his wife.
His fears only grew in the coming days as the numbers of dead and missing people were reported. Over 18,000 had lost their lives, 2,500 were missing, and their bodies were never found.
Yuko was among them.
A Japanese man has dove into the sea over 600 times over the past 13 years in search of the remains of his beloved wife, who lost her life in the 2011 tsunami
Image credits: South China Morning Post
As the Great East Japan Earthquake, the fourth most powerful ever recorded in history, hit the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku on March 11, 2011, Yuko quickly reached for her phone to contact her husband.
A short text message was all she could manage to type during the large number of foreshocks that preceded the disaster. Soon, a massive 7.1 magnitude tremor forced her to run to safety.
Soon afterward, the main earthquake began, with a massive 9.1 magnitude intensity, during which she lost her mobile device.
Image credits: South China Morning Post
The earthquake lasted for six agonizing minutes and caused massive 40-meter waves that traveled up to 10 kilometers inland with a devastating speed of 700 kilometers per hour. Reports revealed that residents only had eight to ten minutes of warning and that more than a hundred evacuation sites were washed away.
Takamatsu headed to the disaster area as soon as he was able to, struggling to find his footing among the ruins of the city and the snowfall that followed. Official accounts revealed that the freezing temperatures that followed hindered the rescue efforts to a great degree, but Yasuo didn’t give up.
The tragedy caused total damages upwards of $488 billion in current dollars, with the ensuing tsunami causing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which involved the meltdown of three reactors and the contamination of the surrounding waters with radioactive materials.
It was the second-most costly disaster in history after Chernobyl in 1986.
Motivated by a text message from his wife’s phone, Takamatsu searched for her on land for more than two years. Then, he took diving lessons to look for her under the sea
Image credits: South China Morning Post
After months of searching, he would finally find his wife’s phone amid the rubble of a bank’s parking lot. He discovered that Yuko had written another message, but she dropped the phone before she could send it.
It read: “The tsunami is disastrous.”
The short text gave him hope, as it was written at 3:25 pm local time. With the earthquake having occurred at 14:46 pm and lasting 6 minutes, it meant his wife managed to survive for another 30 minutes.
There was no other trace of her, and authorities couldn’t find any more clues. For the husband, this meant that Yuko could still be hiding somewhere, waiting to be found.
Image credits: South China Morning Post
With that belief in mind, he continued to search for her on foot for two and a half years. Unable to find any traces of his wife on land, Yasuo took diving lessons in September 2013 so he could search for her underwater.
Since then, he has gone diving over 600 times in the past decade with the help of his instructor, Masayoshi Takahashi, who leads volunteer dives into the ocean to help Yasuo and others like him find missing tsunami victims like Yuko.
The couple got married in 1988. They lived in the coastal town of Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture, located 70 kilometers from the capital city Sendai, and they had a son and a daughter, who thankfully survived the disaster.
His love for his wife and refusal to give up caught the attention of a documentary filmmaker who decided to capture his journey on a 2023 short film
Image credits: South China Morning Post
His story of determination and bravery caught the attention of documentary director Anderson Wright, who decided to film Yasuo’s tale of love, loss, and memory.
The resulting production, titled The Diver, was released in March 2023.
Anderson first encountered the story in 2016 after reading numerous articles about Takamatsu. “Everything about his story totally floored me,” the filmmaker recalls, and he then went on to contact the husband on Facebook, marking the beginning of their relationship.
As they worked together, Wright expressed to have observed a warmth, thoughtfulness, and sense of humor behind Yasuo’s stoic and mournful exterior. He aimed to capture all of it through a visually compelling narrative.
“There is something profoundly touching about Yasuo’s relentless search,” the director stated, explaining that depicting the couple’s love story faithfully was of paramount importance.
“We wanted to focus on the silence of the absence of a loved one,” he continued, choosing a quieter approach for his film’s sound design, immersing the audience in Yasuo’s inner world.
“The fact that Yasuo reveals his vulnerabilities on camera, allows the film to have emotionally powerful moments even when he isn’t saying a word, almost turning his wife’s absence into a character of its own,” explains journalist Céline Roustan in her critique on the site Short of the Week.
“I do want to find her, but I also feel that she may never be discovered as the ocean is way too vast – but I have to keep looking,” Yasuo states in the documentary, vowing to keep looking for as long as he lives.
Readers were moved to know the man is still searching for his wife to date. Some found strength in the example set by Yasuo, while others expressed concern over his health
Image credits: Ultimate Weather
“Even though I understand his commitment and love for her to bring her to peace, I think he also needs to find some peace within himself,” wrote one user.
“I feel so bad because he probably will never find her, given how many years it’s been,” said another.
Others empathized with the husband, understanding that his need to keep moving forward on a mission that seems all but lost is the only way he has left to express his love for Yuko.
“We all have our reason for waking up every morning. This is his reason,” one reader reflected.
“He is grieving and loved her very much, that is something you don’t hear about every day, true love,” another said.
“This is so sad, you can tell how much he loves her. She must have loved him just as much. One can only hope to find a love this strong,” a user expressed.
“This is one of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve read in such a long time,” said another.
“He will keep going until the right time comes for him, and they’ll be together forever once again.”
“He’s grieving”: Netizens were inspired by Yasuo’s tale, with many hoping that he finds the peace that has eluded him since Yuko disappeared
English (US) ·