Caring for the dogs and cats

ON A MISSION: FORMER FUKUSHIMA WORKER FEEDS AND HOUSES ABANDONED PETS

- 

Animals left behind when owners fled nuke disaster.

Not far from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, former plant worker Toru Akama tends to dozens of pets abandoned after the catastrophe 15 years ago, work he sees as part of his quest for redemption.

Meows and barks break the silence of the countryside, once an evacuation zone, as the 63 year old brings food to the animals left behind when their owners fled the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.

"It's because of this plant, where we worked for years, that these animals ended up like this," Akama said at his home in northern Japan, surrounded by cats.

"They should have been able to go on living their lives as pets but because of this accident, they were abandoned.

"I felt it was my duty to protect them," he said.

Akama will never forget what he saw in the wake of the disaster, caused by Japan's strongest earthquake on record.

The tsunami it unleashed killed or left missing 18 500 people and a wall of water crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant on the northeast coast, causing a devastating meltdown.