RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan—Hundreds of soldiers and police fanned out across this tsunami-ravaged city, as authorities redoubled efforts to recover the bodies of thousands still missing along Japan's northeast coast after the disaster.
Troops in camouflage uniforms searched through heaps of rubble with the aid of heavy excavators equipped with giant claws capable of lifting tangled steel and concrete slabs, while police used shovels and their hands to dig through debris in downtown buildings.
The searchers recovered 27 bodies Monday in Rikuzentakata, according to a police official at the city's makeshift morgue in the gymnasium of an unused primary school. That is more than double the average number discovered daily last week.
Six weeks after a massive wall of water, set in motion by a magnitude-9 earthquake, slammed into Rikuzentakata on March 11, hundreds of local residents remain missing. Across Japan, the number is more than 11,000. More than 14,000 are confirmed dead.
In all, about 25,000 Japanese soldiers started an intensive two-day search operation up and down the northeast coast Monday. They were joined by naval and coast guard vessels and police forces across the region.
No national figures on the number of remains recovered in Japan on the first day of this latest operation were available late Monday.
Source Link:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576284781776561362.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Troops in camouflage uniforms searched through heaps of rubble with the aid of heavy excavators equipped with giant claws capable of lifting tangled steel and concrete slabs, while police used shovels and their hands to dig through debris in downtown buildings.
The searchers recovered 27 bodies Monday in Rikuzentakata, according to a police official at the city's makeshift morgue in the gymnasium of an unused primary school. That is more than double the average number discovered daily last week.
Six weeks after a massive wall of water, set in motion by a magnitude-9 earthquake, slammed into Rikuzentakata on March 11, hundreds of local residents remain missing. Across Japan, the number is more than 11,000. More than 14,000 are confirmed dead.
In all, about 25,000 Japanese soldiers started an intensive two-day search operation up and down the northeast coast Monday. They were joined by naval and coast guard vessels and police forces across the region.
No national figures on the number of remains recovered in Japan on the first day of this latest operation were available late Monday.
Source Link:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576284781776561362.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
No comments:
Post a Comment