Ruiko Sasahara can never forget the sight of a little girl lying in a morgue after the tsunami five years ago.

The 43-year-old mother of two is a nokanshi (undertaker) from Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture. She prepares corpses for cremation.

Sasahara was confident she could restore the girl's face to how she might have looked in life. However, she was not permitted to do so as the body had not been identified by relatives.