Norio Kimura, 50, who lost his father, wife and daughter in the March 11, 2011 tsunami, changes flowers for his family at a stone statue of Jizo and a monument he made for his family on the hill behind his home inside the exclusion zone in Okuma, near Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Feb 13, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

"I was able to hold Erika in my arms and say 'I am sorry'. I have yet to be able to do the same to Kotaro," said Ueno, who lives 22 km (14 miles) north of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

A magnitude 9 earthquake and towering tsunami on March 11, 2011 killed nearly 16,000 people along Japan's northeastern coast and left more than 2,500 missing.

The nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has made the experience of those who lived nearby particularly traumatic.