This is Captain Toyohiko Tomioka, the captain of the Tokyo Fire Department’s Hyper Rescue Squad, which is the most elite emergency response squad in the country. Considering these guys have to be in a state of constant readiness due to the fact that a devastating earthquake could strike Tokyo at anytime, Tomioka’s men are certainly the best of the best. Their headquarters are in Tokyo but they are on call to respond to any crisis that requires their expertise around the entire nation.
March 11, 2011 – Japan gets hit by the triple body blow of a magnitude 9+ earthquake, devastating tsunami and a nuclear disaster. If ever there was a need for these guys it was right then. Tomioka and his squad are the first on the scene at the stricken Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, which had reported problems with shutting down and was now experiencing overheating. Everyone knew the situation was bad, but at that time no one knew exactly how bad. Tomioka’s team undertook the dangerous job of pouring seawater into the unstable reactor to bring the temperature under control.
When finally the facts came out it turned out that several of the reactors had indeed suffered a meltdown on March 11, and it was only through the rapid and tireless intervention of Tomioka’s squad that prevented the situation from spiraling further out of hand. Without his efforts, at the very worst a large scale explosion could have occurred, at the very least much larger populations would have had to be evacuated as the condition of the reactors worsened. These guys are heroes in every sense of the word.
Which is why they received the Fundacion Principe Asturias Award recently – which is the highest honor one can receive from the Spanish Royal family. The award was given collectively to the ‘Fukushima 50′, meaning the fifty brave men and women in Tomioka’s squad, but he himself was chosen as the representative to receive the award. Here he is photographed for Spanish magazine XL Semenal at his Headquarters in Tokyo.
Those hoses you see in the background of the shot above are the ones used to cool the reactors in Fukushima. Capable of putting through several tons of water a minute. Pretty crazy stuff, right?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the second shot from the top.
Great back-story too.
Hey Jono, thanks for the comment! Was really an honor to meet him and have a chance to photograph him.
great job irz! nice to hear the story behind the photos. terrific shots too!
thanks em, appreciate the comments!