shed a tear, you may not see behind the scenes. i'm contessa drewer. it came without warning. one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. and in 2011, recorded history means something very different than it once did.

this time, when nature unleashed its power, the world was a witness. images like we've never seen captured like never before. in this special edition of "caught on camera, disaster in japan." the 9.0 earthquake that rocked japan set in motion an unprecedented chain of events, a tsunami devastated large sections of the island nation. and then a nuclear crisis set in, when damaged reactors created a new threat, a lingering threat. these tragedies struck at a time and place in which cameras are everywhere. almost instantly, a wave of video moved across the internet and television, providing a rare view of nature's fury.

in this program, the most vivid of those images. experts watch with us, explain what we're seeing and help us better understand the disaster in japan. march 11th, 2011. >> this is unreal. hell on earth unfolded on march 11th. >> i think it will go down in history as perhaps the greatest or most profound environmental catastrophe of the 21st century. >> an earthquake off the coast of japan triggers a massive tsunami. >> this disaster registers beyond the scale. >> actually those kind of images

that seen how a tsunami came ashore, amazing, phenomenal, i couldn't take my eyes off the television set. >> it is incredibly deceiving to watch this footage when you see this canvas of disaster laying out before you on the tv set. it looks just deceptively small. >> the tsunami coming ashore is like the early part of a horror movie. where the music is playing in the background, the danger is right around the corner. >> this is a phenomenon witnessed by everyone who has been about to experience a tsunami. a low tide, an incredible minus tide appears out of nowhere. what's happening is that water's getting sucked up into the formation of the tsunami, and when you see that, you know you're in trouble and you need

to get out of the way. >> unfortunately, in the past, hopefully people are a little better educated, you know. you see fish flopping around and all of a sudden you can see things that you never saw before, and everybody goes running out to see what's on the sea floor. three or four minutes go by with the water down, and then the wave comes back in. the wave that comes in is coming in at 50 miles an hour. you know, you go to the shore and you get hit by a wave and it knocks you over at the shore. they're going five miles an hour. these are going ten times as fast. >> japan is no stranger to the idea of this killer wave, this tsunami. in fact, they are the originator of this term. they sit in some of the most unstable bits of geological pieces of earth that our planet can produce. they have experienced tsunamis for millenia. they are sandwiched, they are

literally at ground zero in the ring of fire, and because of that, they have felt the pain of devastating earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanos. this is the earth. we have these plates. so these are two plates and they're actually sliding into each other. this is called subduction. it slid underneath the other one. we have this ball of energy that goes to the surface of the water, then this tube forms. now, this tube isn't right here. it's actually a ripple. so it's stretching around the entire pacific. it lifts up to 30 feet, devastating, dissolving, destroying everything it touches. what you discover is that as this ripple effect, this series of waves moves inland, it has -- it's ferocious. imagine, if you would, a flank

of aircraft moving towards and crashing into the coastline of japan. that is the energy that was moving behind these waves. >> here, cameras watch from overhead as a boat faces the deadly force of a tsunami-triggered whirlpool. >> this for me is just shocking. we're actually seeing the formation of a monstrous tidal pool. what's happening is here's the coastline right here. all that water pressure, all that momentum is coming in and hitting the coastline but it's got nowhere to go so it pushes out and then gets pushed back in, like you're flushing a toilet. >> looks like one of those scenes from 2012. frightening. not sure what happens to the boat. >> that's not your child's

little toy boat. that right there is an industrial vessel that's probably 50 or 60 tons and is 70 feet in length, and it is being swallowed. it is literally being flushed down into the belly of the ocean. >> this aerial shot catches the wave having traveled inland in its deadly surge through the countryside. >> japan's coastline, its ocean, has now made its way many miles into the interior. suddenly this just angry tsunami just consumes and dissolves and destroys everything it touches. anything in its path is either crushed or moved or swallowed. and just when you think it's going to stop, it just doesn't. it just keeps going. that's really the, you know, you look at some of these videos and what really strikes you is how can it keep going inland so far from the ocean. but it does. >> this is just stunning to see boats in places where they don't belong, and everything in the wave and the mud is a weapon. you can see, not everyone has evacuated. hopefully no one's in the house. it's horrifying. who knows what that poor person is thinking. >> what you need to know is every one of these little dots right here, this isn't seafoam. those are tankers, vehicles, bits of buildings, structure. this is a whole community just being consumed by the wave, and actually being a part of the

destruction. you can even see fires from all the energy happening here, exploding and combusting. all of this, all the poisons and toxins, will be washed deep into this fertile farmland. eventually this wave will recede after all the destruction, but what it leaves behind will probably poison this soil for many, many decades. >> by nightfall on march 11th, 2011, thousands are feared dead and a state of emergency's declared. >> the before and after pictures are just stunning. it looks as if places that used to be dry land ar >> this, this will take many, many, many decades to clean up. the devastation here is just absolutely catastrophic.

>> coming up, from the ground, the rising waters are caught on camera. >> anything it touches is destroyed. >> it's like a wave with the devil in it. >> and later, radiation leaks spark evacuations and concern. >> i heard that the rain was radioactive. ok! who gets occasional constipation,

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within moments of the tsunami reaching the coast of

japan, news agencies and the internet are inundated with video accounts from bystanders on the ground who catch the wave's destruction on camera. >> we're actually seeing that moment of contact. this just terrible moment. the first wave of that ripple effect, what we call a tsunami. and that energy just climaxes and just pushes forward. >> starts -- just looks like high tide except it just keeps on coming. it just goes and goes and goes. >> a camera at the deserted sendai airport soundlessly captures the water creeping over the tarmac. >> imagine yourself, you're sitting there and you're looking out the window and your plane

should be right there and then suddenly you see this wall of water and you're in the middle of it and you've got nowhere to go. [ sirens ] >> this video circulated widely on facebook illustrates how a trickle of water becomes a raging flood, shredding buildings and almost effortlessly carrying away cars. >> you're seeing this water flood in and it looks deceptively benign. >> this one is as it's just coming into the city. still going 20 or 30 miles an hour. you can see it running through the shops and things and it will just start tearing things apart as it comes through town. >> anything it touches is destroyed. it's manipulated, it's twisted,

it's dissolved, it's crunched as this ripple effect begins to snake and sneak its way into the interior of this community. >> it's like a wave with a devil in it. >> you could never swim or fight this wave. again, we look at it. you think, okay, maybe i could negotiate that. but you couldn't. [ sirens ] >> they had a warning system for it. told people to get to higher ground and people -- many people evacuated vertically. other people ran for the hills. >> in japan, they have drills s for kids. they tell them what do you do if you hear that tsunami warning go off? and everybody knows to get to higher ground. >> there was this one moment for me that i will never forget.

you see this one little minivan. you could see the windshield wiper in the back and it just gelled in me. and i realized, my goodness, there's someone in that vehicle. there's a mother maybe with her kids in the back seat trying to dodge this disastrous wave and they didn't make it. as a father and as a husband, that moment became very real. >> here a community looks on as entire neighborhoods are washed away. >> we see this little hamlet and we see this wave move in. and then we see the buildings just disappear like alka-seltzer

tablets in water. and right now reality is setting in, unfortunately, for these people. >> they are awe-struck. they are dumbfounded except for their screaming. they are lost and don't know how to feel. there's nothing that could be done. >> you see people running. here's a person running as fast as they can. that individual is a few hundred feet away from that tsunami. and this person right here i hope -- i'd like to think that that individual is the luckiest person in japan because that water really is now 20, 30 -- it's now -- that water is coming right to this person and look. he's made it. >> these boats built to withstand the sea are no match for the charging floodwaters.

>> any boat in the way it's just going to toss. the wave in all tsunamis, they look inky. they're like black. they're not water anymore. the reason is they carry so much debris and pick up the soil and so much else that they are like ink. >> now, watch this. look at that vessel. that is probably a 60 foot long commercial vessel and it just was chewed up and eaten by this water and this bridge like a marshmallow going through a cuisinart. >> where ever there is water there is danger. when you put up floodwalls and put up levees you see a sign of safety. you say, okay, i can live here now. this is an okay place to live. the hazards are still there. inevitably, the hazard will come. the water will come.

coming up -- what came before the tsunami. scenes from the devastating earthquake. and later, stunning stories of survival. p big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ [ speaking in japanese ] yeah, do you have anything for a headache... like excedrin, ohhh, bayer aspirin...

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the earth shook. and shook and shook. >> it was stunning. tremendous amount of power released.

>> when you hit something like 9.0, that's catastrophic. these two plates came together and one submitted to the other. it acquiesced. in this process called subduction. and as it moved, the earth buckled and then popped. >> from this video from yokohama city, buildings sway, streets buckle, and walls wobble. >> the engineering community is used to design buildings to withstand this kind of seismic motion and contrary to popular belief, actually taller buildings usually are doing better than short buildings because they are very flexible and they can ride out an earthquake like this without major damage. >> it shocks people, but surprisingly, they don't panic. at least not at first. >> one the things that you're not seeing is you're not seeing

panic. this thing -- the idea of panic as we see it in disaster movies is mainly a myth that people just freak out and run through the streets and push over grandmothers to save themselves. it generally doesn't happen. >> video cameras keep rolling even in the midst of a crisis. the earthquake happens off the coast of japan under water at 2:46 p.m. it's a magnitude 9.0 and lasts for an extraordinary 2 1/2 minutes. >> we actually had a shift in the earth's mass and that in some ways actually affected the positioning of our planet on its axis and the way we actually rotate. and what happened was the earth actually spun up a little faster.

>> it's a busy friday afternoon and the violent quake catches people off guard, in offices, in train stations. they have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and nothing to hang on to but each other. >> when people are together and hazard comes at them, they tend to bond together in the face of a common enemy. but people will get together with perfect strangers and put aside all kinds of petty differences. >> for some, a simple trip into the grocery store turns into a mad dash back into the streets, away from falling bottles and metal shelves. here we see the chaos as it unfolds inside a house. this woman ducks for cover under

a coffee table but can't fit. >> that's exactly what they teach you to do in an earthquake, get in a door jamb, get under a table so that when that tv falls, it doesn't fall on your head. we usually see that people -- people stick to their jobs in times of crisis. this fellow who appears to be -- he's narrating the events, that's his job. it's kind of amazing that people continue on with their regular lives. this is what we see in disaster. this is what people do. >> cameras capture scary scenes of the quake all the over japan, including in parliament. prime minister naoto kan appears stunned but calm. >> they were very poised under a terrible circumstance. they did all the things you need

to do, assess the situation before you run. >> the top of the tokyo tower must have been one of the scariest places during the earthquake. tourists find themselves trapped on the observation floor more than 800 feet above sea level. >> oh, my god! in a minute we go down, huh? maybe we don't stay here. >> so these people are on top of the tokyo tower at the time the earthquake strikes. the skyscrapers swaying back and forth. i believe i would be running for the stairs at this point. perhaps they're not doing so because they're not -- they're not running away because they know that modern structures in tokyo are safe places to be. coming up -- first the quake.

then the tsunami. and then the nuclear disaster. >> what's going to happen to the >> what's going to happen to the planet after this?s ]

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president -- it was one year ago today that a 9.0 earthquake shook japan, a massive tsunami washed away everything in sight. 167,000 people were killed.

the natural disasters that struck japan were overwhelming. the size and power of the quake and tsunami obvious to anyone in their midst. one look at their immediate aftermath and it was plain to see the tragedy would touch thousands. but the disaster that followed was not in plain sight. in fact it was largely invisible. badly damaged nuclear reactors leaked radiation, creating a new threat to public safety. that threat was not only harder to see and harder to define. it was a threat that would last more than just a few hours or even a few days. just when it seemed the news out of japan couldn't get any worse, there was this. >> that explosion blew off the roof and consumed the walls of the containment building.

>> but the explosion at reactor 1 was just the beginning of things to come. >> there's a lot going on in japan right now. >> at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant, along japan's northeastern coast, four reactors are crippled by the earthquake when their power shuts down. >> they all shut down as they're designed to immediately. but when a reactor shuts down, there's still radioactive decay going on there. >> making matters worse, back-up generators are designed to keep the water circulation system flowing so that the reactors can cool, but they fail. >> then the tsunami came through, so they lost their electricity. so that's a problem. what happens if the reactor starts to overheat is that the water starts to evaporate in the core. >> the evaporating water creates tremendous pressure and the steam has to be vented. a combustive mixture of hydrogen, steam and oxygen

plumes spills from the reactor causing an explosion. the images are scary on their own, but it's what cannot be seen by the cameras that's most terrifying. >> why are you going to your car right now? >> translator: because i heard that the rain is radioactive and that if it touches your skin, i will get some kind of skin disease. >> nbc's lester holt spoke with many people concerned about contamination including foreigners eager to leave japan. >> the tsunami you feel like in the middle of japan or tokyo it's not a problem but with the radiation it's like you cannot escape and you cannot see. >> officials take a drastic measure. they decide to pump seawater into the plants in an effort to cool the core and prevent further damage. >> in the 12-mile area 200,000 people have been evacuated which

may have been an abundance of caution by a government already dealing with this horrible tragedy but it shows that they're taking this very seriously. >> as the days pass, the situation continues to deteriorate. on march 14th, a second explosion. this time at reactor 3. >> this spectacular explosion, this one went upwards. and there was pieces of debris which went up with it. it fell back. it's thought that the reactor containment vessel remained intact. >> looking at those jets of material, knowing that it's extremely radioactive, this plume of radioactive material just flying into the air and up into the atmosphere and then wondering where it's going to be and what's going to happen to the planet after this. >> within hours, fears grow of an uncontrolled radiation leak. as the government announces that more than 190 people have been exposed to radiation. >> more radiation is leaking from the plant and they are trying desperately to prevent disaster. >> the next day, tuesday, march 15th, the japanese government orders people within 19 miles of

the blast to remain indoors to avoid exposure. >> as the snow began to fall, we began a drive that would bring us within miles of the damaged reactors. by necessity, it's where the road goes. the radio is our constant companion. the news is rarely good, but the advice is. >> so we're just outside the affected area now. we've been told to stop and as a precaution what we're supposed to do, turn off the vents, turn off the air conditioning as well, make sure the windows are all rolled up. we're not going to get out of the car until well past the affected area. and as we get closer ourselves, the road gets emptier and emptier. there's the signs for fukushima. looks like on our map we're about 70 kilometers away from the site right now and we're the only car on the road. it remains that way until we hit the outskirts of tokyo where, upon arrival, we're checked for radiation. our shoes test positive for a tiny amount, so we're told to

scrub them down with soap and water. >> in the days after the tsunami, mother nature actually helps matters. steady winds blow the radiation cloud out to sea. >> that cloud is going to thin out and dissipate quite a bit. >> the other situation that we really can see here is that the intense plume doesn't go very far from japan and that's why we're not concerned for anything being transported to the u.s. in any significant kind of quantity. >> by wednesday, march 16th, emergency efforts are in full force. a core team of emergency workers are rotating in and out of the complex to try to reduce their radiation exposure. a japanese official compares them to suicide fighters in a war. >> they are down to a skeleton crew of 50 very brave people who are taking great personal risks and who, frankly, the world is really counting on right now. >> what radiation sickness does

basically is harms your immune system. so people who get radiation sickness die from having their immune system destroyed. >> and helicopters, fire trucks and water cannons douse the plant with water in an effort to control the volatile situation. the whole world watches and waits to see what will happen. ok, guys-- what's next ? chocolate lemonade ? susie's lemonade... the movie. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at lightning-fast speeds. we'll take all the strawberries, dave. you got it, kid. we have a winner. we're definitely gonna need another one. small businesses that want to grow use 4g lte technology from verizon. i wonder how she does it. that's why she's the boss. because the small business with the best technology rules.

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talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action. viagra. talk to your doctor. after the shaking stopped and the water receded, this is what was left. >> the scale is initially overwhelming.

everything is not where it's supposed to be. everything is destroyed. if you were to go there, everywhere you would turn would be nothing but devastation. >> this is what hit the town of minamisanriku. before this terrifying moment, this is what the town looked like, seen in a satellite image. and this is what it looks like now. >> this obviously is a scene of absolutely remarkable destruction. it's as if a very large bomb had gone off and just flattened everything, which is exactly what the power of a major tsunami like this is capable of doing. so this is extraordinary amount

of destruction that we're watching here. >> a once busy town silent. nbc's lee cowan arrived in the town three days after the tsunami. >> they call it the town that disappeared. all we could find was a shattered footprint at the end of a washed-out road. just -- it just doesn't stop. everywhere you look. >> cars swept along with the water and deposited wherever the wave saw fit. houses torn off their foundations, splintered into a million pieces. >> when it comes in, the power of the water as it hits things, it just knocks it apart. people think that with tsunamis you worry about drowning.

the big problem with the tsunami is that they hit things so hard that they'll just splinter everything in sight. >> before the disaster, some 17,000 people lived here. now more than half are reported missing. at the town's hospital, bodies lie draped in blankets on the fifth floor. the only floor to escape the water. this nurse was there. >> translator: i thought i was going to die. >> many levels of this hospital were flooded. they had no chance of escaping. you can see the wall and the layer of how high this tsunami was as it moved. it was 30 feet in height. but it wasn't just one wave. it was a great column of waves and it just destroyed everything in its path.

>> in other towns, more destruction. the port city of sendai before and after. on the ground, the debris stretches off into the distance. >> it's truly hard for all of us to comprehend where you begin with the clean-up. there's just so much devastation. it has become twisted and melted into this truly toxic soup that has likely poisoned this environment for many decades. >> stark before and after contrasts all along the coast caught on cameras perched miles above the earth. >> everything that stood has

been either compromised, leveled or moved. every little thing that looks like a tiny little piece of lego from the photo or a little tonka truck is a tanker, is a building. all these little flecks are thousands of cars. >> the town of natori before and after. survivors search for missing loved ones. this woman is overwhelmed by the destruction she finds. >> psychologically, this is about as bad as it gets for a human being. if you happen to survive, you're undoubtedly in a situation where you've lost friends and neighbors.

not only that, you've lost the physical structure of your community, a sense of place. everything is eradicated. >> and in the middle of the chaos, people wait calmly for basics in short supply. >> most people do respond in an orderly way after a disaster. >> it's an overwhelming scene, overwhelming story. but the truth is communities and towns around the world are regularly subjected to destructive forces and find ways to come back. the human spirit is a resilient one. coming up, harrowing rescues.

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the photos and video of human suffering are so great, but in all this horrendous devastation are stories of survival. victims are being pulled from the piles of wreckage by air, land and sea.

>> they said they couldn't evacuate in time. they had about half an hour before the tidal wave came in and the whole place has been devastated. survivors picking through the debris of what's left and it's an appalling situation. it's as bad as anything i've seen. [ sirens ] >> the reality of finding someone alive in the debris is very small. but we obviously continue to search and keep our hopes up. >> firefighters scour the sea of homes, cars and rubble, hoping to find a survivor. when they discover someone alive but trapped. after rescuers managed to pull him out, they learn he had been trapped under the collapsed

building for four days. >> look. run, run, run, up, up, up, up. >> reporter: she's okay now? safe? >> she's okay, safe. >> the scenes of the rescues are wonderful. they bring a tear to my eye. they are stories, images that should give us hope. >> we found essentially hundreds of people. they had say a hundred at this place, 200 at this place, 300 at this place.

it's just a matter of getting them out. just like any disaster, they don't want to leave their home. they don't want to leave their family. >> translator: i happened to find a tree. i struggled to hang on to the tree to move up. it was really hard in swirly, swirly water. just as i thought to myself i have to hang tough, a floor mat drifted toward me. i got on it and floated around and around the houses and was finally drifted away over here. >> can you hear me? make a noise. >> the enormous scale of the tragedy is overwhelming, but the unlikely stories of survival offer hope to a nation completely devastated. three elderly people were

extracted from this car 20 hours after being washed away by the tsunami. throughout the chaos, people put their own lives at risk for the sake of others. two men use a fire hose to save this woman. as she tries to escape from the wall of water. she thanks them saying she thought she was about to die. in scenes reminiscent of hurricane katrina's aftermath, rescue teams mark cars that have been searched for survivors. >> we're working in combined team with the united states and with china. and the idea is to slowly progress through all the buildings, vehicles to make sure there's no persons missing in

them. >> the tales of survival are awe inspiring. this man clings to what was left of his home, a small piece of tin roofing drifting nine miles out at sea, surrounded by debris, waiting to be rescued. in the desperate effort to locate and rescue survivors, everyone in the devastated regions is pitching in. an american family tweets nbc's ann curry about a missing family member. ann makes it her mission to find the woman. >> do you have my sister? >> i found your sister. here she is. >> oh, my god. it's her. she's on the phone. oh, my god. are you okay? >> fine. >> are you okay? >> yeah. i'm totally okay.

>> survivors take comfort from each other. this dog named mae was separated from her owner when her house was slammed by the massive waves. >> so she was very happy to see you? >> yes, yes, yes, i'm very happy. >> it's impressive. it's amazing what has happened to this area. overwhelming. you wonder how the locals -- the local people that live here are to recover from it.

>> i'm contessa brewer. that's all for this special edition of "caught on camera." ♪

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