Man dives in ocean searching for wife every day since she went missing in 2011 tsunami
Yasuo Takamatsu has spent more than a decade in search of his wife after she disappeared after the 2011 tsunami in Japan and even took diving lessons to find the love of his life
A Japanese man has tragically dived every day in search of his wife who disappeared in the infamous 2011 tsunami.
As documented in "The Diver," Yasuo Takamatsu has spent years tirelessly searching for his missing wife. He started off by searching at the bank where she vanished, the beaches at Onagawa and through forestland. After no result, he decided to take lessons from a local dive expert to expand his search.
The instructor, Masayoshi Takahashi, often took volunteers on dives to clean up tsunami debris along the coastline. He kept records of Takamatsu's searches, documenting the shores and depths he dived at.
While the instructor tried to help him out, Takamatsu faced several obstacles due to restricted fishing routes and dangerous currents. He ended up coordinating each dive with the coast guard and fishermen.
Takamatsu and his wife Yuko fell in love instantly in 1988. She worked at the 77 Bank in Onagawa and Takamatsu was a soldier in Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force when his boss introduced them.
On March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami hit Onagawa, Takamatsu dropped his wife to the bank as it was on the waterfront at the city's main port. While dropping his mother-in-law at the hospital, the earthquake hit and it lasted for six minutes.
He rushed back to Onagawa and checked the radio for news of a tsunami. He got a message from his son that he was fine, but didn't get any information about his wife and daughter.
The man received a message from his wife at 3:21 checking if he was fine and said: "I want to go home."
He thought Yuko might have been evacuated to a hospital on Mount Horikiri but couldn't get there as it was a designated evacuation point for the town.
A month after the tsunami, someone found Yuko's phone, and a heartbroken text that he didn't receive read: "Too much tsunami."
In a bid to find her, Takamatsu took regular diving lessons at the age of 56. He kept going with Takahashi's regular dive customers, but no one knew that he was there to find his wife's body.
He was always accompanied by a diver. In 2013, he decided to pass the national diving certification to be able to move debris and look for bodies. Takamatsu passed the exam in 2014 and for months, he volunteered to remove debris, according to the New York Times.
By January 2016, he completed 110 dives, each about 40 to 50 minutes. He said: "I expected it to be difficult. And I've found it quite difficult, but it is the only thing I can do.
"I have no choice but to keep looking for her. I feel closest to her in the ocean. In other countries, people might say 'I love you,' but Japanese people know without saying, I think it's more implied and understood among each other without having to say words. That's how I at least felt for us."
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