It is mid-afternoon on Friday, March 11, 2011.

A tall man in his mid-50s puts on a pair of glasses and looks out of his office window.

His blue uniform marks him out as an employee of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Masao Yoshida is the plant manager.

And though he's been here less than a year, he has a wealth of experience.

His view from the window is dominated by four enormous structures towering above him.

Blue windowless cubes.

Each one is large as an office block.

They look like monolithic slabs from a science fiction film.

Between them, they house four of the plant's six nuclear reactor vessels,

distributing power all over northern Japan.

Suddenly, Yoshida feels a trembling through the floor,

and he has shouts from the office beyond his door.

Through the windows, he can see workers running in the car park below.

The tall electrical pylons connecting the station to the grid are swaying.

The trembling increases, objects begin to fall from the shelves.

Holding onto his desk to steady himself, Yoshida makes for the door,

until the ground drops beneath his feet.

The office fills with the screams and shouts of his co-workers as a roar growls beneath them.

The swaying turns into a rapid shaking, side to side, up and down, growing in intensity.

There's no doubt in the workers' minds. This is an earthquake.

They all fault their knees, hands over their heads, as dust rains down.

...