A Lone Man’s Resolve

Pengkuei Ben Huang
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read
Norio Kimura(52) is clering out grasses over his land at Okuma town. His house is located inside the exclusion zone in Fukushima.

On the foothill south of Stricken Fukushima №1 Nuclear Power Plant lies a blooming Sunflower field. A lone man, occasionally with helps of volunteers, comes here to tend the garden. The land surrounds the gorgeous field was his former home where he spent years of his life with his parents, his wife and two beautiful daughters. But all that are the thing of past now. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami have wiped out his home, and took away lives of his father, a love of his life and one of his precious daughter, then 7. The nuclear disaster has made him and remainder of his family impossible to return to their former homes.

Norio Kimura(52) is picking up flowers for his family graves near by. He has been tended a garden in memory for his missing daughter inside the exlcusion zone in Fukushima.

Norio Kimura, the man who created the sunflower garden to commemorate his daughter, began a quest to find his missing family members soon after the disaster in the town of Okuma in Fukushima Prefecture. But the search and rescue effort was hampered by a nuclear disaster 4 km of his home. All personals in the area at the time had to be evacuated due to the high level of radiation. He was able to retrieve his father and his wife’s bodies six months after the disaster, but there was no trace of his missing daughter. Determined, He embarked multiple journeys back to Okuma to find his daughter’s remain after resettled in Nagano Prefecture, about 500km from his former home. But the radiation concern means he was only allowed to enter the town once during the first two years since 2011 and 15 times a year with time limit of 5 hours per visit afterward. The tireless effort did come in fruition on Dec 9. 2016 when he and volunteers found partial remain. But he vows to continue until he finds every single piece.

(LEFT)The beach near where Norio Kimura’s former home. A 30 meter high tsunami had destroyed his house and killed his father, his wife and his youngest daughter on March 11, 2011. (RIGHT)Norio Kimura(52) is at the site where he found his daughter’s partial remain on December 2016. His daughter is still listed as missing since 2011 disaster.
Sun flowers on the garden Norio Kimura created at his former home inside exclusion zone in Fukushima. His former home is about 4KM south of strcken nuclear power plant.
(LEFT)Norio Kimura(52) is looking over the elementary school classroom where his deceased daughter attended. (RIGHT)Cllothes belong to Yuna Kimura(age 7 at the time), whom swept away by tsunami on March 11, 2011. Only partial remain has been found as of August 2017.

However, time is slowly running out on his side…

Due to the proximity of Norio Kimura’s home to the stricken nuclear plant, level of contamination has made him and other residents impossible to return. The government began a plan in March 2015 to convert the area into a storage centre for all contaminated soils from near by clean up. Although residents are oppose the plan but the government is determined to buy back the land. Norio Kimura does not particularly oppose the plan which will see his home converted into storage space. But at the moment he refuse to give away the land ownership to the government.

“It’s just doesn’t seem fair that this town has to bear such a burden when it has already lost so much…”

On June 30, 2017, 6 years after the disaster, three former executives from Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates Fukushima №1 Nuclear Power Plant, was indicted for professional negligence.

All three pleaded not guilty…

(LEFT)A shrine was erected on the site where Norio Kimura’s daughter’s partial remain was found on Decmber 2016. (CENTER)A flower garden named after Norio Kimura’s daughter was created by Norio at his former home inside the exclusion zone in Fukushima. (RIGHT) Norio Kimura(52) at his current home in Hakuba, a town about 400km from his former home in Fukushima. Pictures of his deceased daughter Yuna Kimura, then age 6, can be seen in the back.
(Left)Norio Kimura(52) and his eldest surving daughter Mayu Kimura(16) at their current home in Hakuba. (CENTER)A mini concert was held at Noiro Kimura’s current home in Hakuba, about 400km from his former home in Fukushima. (RIGHT)Norio Kimura(52) smiled during a speech at his current home in Hakuba.
(LEFT)Norio Kimura(52) at his current house in Hakuba. (CENTER)Norio Kimura(52) at his current home in Hakuba. An experiement has been made to try to harvest flower seeds from his former home in Fukushima and turning them into latern oils. (RIGHT)Coastal cliff near Norio Kimura’s former home in the town of Okuma, Fukushima overlooking stricken Fukushima №1 Nuclear Power Plant.
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