For more than a decade, Yasuo Takamatsu has refused to stop searching.

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Week after week, he heads into the water with the same deeply personal hope: that somewhere beneath the vast ocean, he may finally find his missing wife, Yuko, per BBC News.

She disappeared during the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, one of the world’s most catastrophic natural disasters.

More than 15,500 people were killed as the tsunami swept through communities, while around 450,000 people were left homeless.

Homes and businesses were destroyed. Roads and railway lines were devastated. The country’s infrastructure suffered enormous damage and the economic impact was severe.

The disaster also triggered a meltdown at three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Toxic, radioactive materials were released into the environment, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

And even after all these years, more than 2,500 people remain listed as missing.

Yuko is one of them.

On the day of the tsunami, she was working at a bank when the waves struck and swept her away.

Before disappearing, she managed to send an email to her husband.

It contained words that Yasuo would never forget.

“Are you OK? I want to go home”

It was the last thing she ever said to him.

Yasuo was in another town that day, visiting a hospital with his mother-in-law.

After the waves had torn through the area and destroyed everything in their path, he was unable to immediately return. He had to remain where he was until it was considered safe enough to travel back.

But once Yasuo finally reached the area, his search began.

At first, he looked for Yuko on land.

Among the devastation, her mobile phone was eventually discovered in a random parking lot.

On the device was an unsent message.

“The tsunami is disastrous.”

The message had been written at around 3:25PM local time but was never delivered.

For Yasuo, the search did not end there.

He spent two-and-a-half years looking on land for his wife before eventually deciding he needed to turn his attention to the sea.

In September 2013, Yasuo began taking diving lessons.

This was not about finding a new hobby or seeking adventure.

He wanted to learn how to properly search beneath the water for Yuko’s body.

And once he had learned to dive, he kept going.

Every single week.

Yasuo has continued his underwater searches alongside diving instructor Masayoshi Takahashi, who leads volunteer dives helping other people search for loved ones who remain missing.

The ocean presents an almost unimaginable search area.

Yet Yasuo continues to enter the water, knowing each dive could end exactly like the one before it.

So far, he has found no trace of Yuko.

Still, giving up is not something he is prepared to do.

Speaking in the short film The Diver, Yasuo explained the painful reality of his search.

“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,” he said.

Those final words perhaps explain why, after more than a decade, Yasuo is still diving.

The scale of the 2011 tsunami makes his task painfully difficult. Thousands of people were lost, communities were changed forever and more than 2,500 missing people have still not been found.

Yasuo understands how vast the ocean is.

He knows Yuko may never be discovered.

But he also knows the final message she sent him.

“Are you OK? I want to go home”

And so, week after week, Yasuo keeps searching for his wife.

Featured image credit: Debal Das / Pexels