09/01/2026
The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 changed the lives of millions within minutes. In the coastal town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, the disaster separated Yasuo Takamatsu from his wife, Yuko Takamatsu, who was working at a bank at the time. Before she disappeared, Yuko managed to send a final text message asking about her husband and expressing her wish to go homeโwords that became their last communication.
For more than two years after the tsunami, Yasuo searched for Yuko on land, combing through debris, evacuation centers, and the hills surrounding Onagawa. The search brought no results. While many eventually accepted the loss, Yasuo chose a different path and refused to stop looking.
In 2013, at over 50 years old, Yasuo learned scuba diving so he could search places he had never reached beforeโthe ocean floor. With help from volunteer instructors, he began diving in dangerous waters affected by the tsunami. Since then, he has dived almost every week, completing more than 600 dives and recovering debris and personal items belonging to victims, though no definite trace of Yuko has been found.
For Yasuo, the search is not only about finding a body, but about love and devotion. As long as he continues to search, he believes his wife has not truly gone. To this day, he still enters the same sea, holding on to a simple hopeโthat one day, he will be able to bring Yuko home.