Soldiers' grim search finds 38 bodies
Source: Agencies |
April 26, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A LINE of somber soldiers walked methodically through a drained swamp yesterday in Japan, with each step sinking their slender poles into the muck beneath.
If one hit a body, he would know.
"Bodies feel very distinctive," said Michihiro Ose, a spokesman for the Japanese army's 22nd infantry regiment.
The men were among 25,000 troops given the morbid duty of searching the rubble, the seas and the swamps of northeastern Japan for the bodies of the nearly 12,000 people still missing in last month's earthquake and tsunami.
The two-day operation was the biggest military search since the March 11 disaster. With waters receding, officials hoped the troops, backed by police, coast guard and US forces, would make significant progress. By last night, they had found 38 bodies, the military said.
In the town of Shichigahamamachi, about two dozen Japanese soldiers in black boots, white masks and waterproof jumpsuits traveled silently in unison across the soggy earth, made even softer by torrential rains an hour earlier. In some areas, the mud came up to their knees.
The search focused on a long, narrow marsh drained by the army using special pump trucks.
Once the soldiers reached the end of the marsh, they turned around and walked back. And then back again.
"It's important not to miss anything," Ose said as he watched the soldiers nearly camouflaged by the dark gray mud. "As long as there is time left in the day, we will keep going up and down."
In another part of town, several dozen soldiers cleared mountains of rubble by hand from a waterfront neighborhood filled with gutted and teetering houses. Four people in the neighborhood were missing, said 67-year-old Sannojo Watanabe.
"That was my house right there," he said, pointing to a foundation with nothing atop it.
He surveyed the neighborhood: "There's nothing left here."
A total of 24,800 soldiers - backed by 90 helicopters and planes - were sent to comb through the rubble for buried remains, while 50 boats and 100 navy divers searched the waters up to 20 kilometers off the coast to find those swept out to sea.
The search is far more difficult than that for earthquake victims, who would mostly be under rubble. The tsunami could have left the victims anywhere.
"We just don't know where the bodies are," Ose said.
Also yesterday, Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan and member of his nuclear crisis management task force, slammed the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, for its handling of the crisis.
The plant was not properly prepared for the tsunami or for the loss of power that followed, he said. And TEPCO delayed the crucial venting of radioactive steam that built up immense pressure and may have contributed to hydrogen explosions that made the crisis even worse, he said. All those issues are being investigated, he said.
Hosono said the situation at the plant remained "extremely difficult," with radioactivity high in some areas and the transfer of contaminated water proving difficult.
If one hit a body, he would know.
"Bodies feel very distinctive," said Michihiro Ose, a spokesman for the Japanese army's 22nd infantry regiment.
The men were among 25,000 troops given the morbid duty of searching the rubble, the seas and the swamps of northeastern Japan for the bodies of the nearly 12,000 people still missing in last month's earthquake and tsunami.
The two-day operation was the biggest military search since the March 11 disaster. With waters receding, officials hoped the troops, backed by police, coast guard and US forces, would make significant progress. By last night, they had found 38 bodies, the military said.
In the town of Shichigahamamachi, about two dozen Japanese soldiers in black boots, white masks and waterproof jumpsuits traveled silently in unison across the soggy earth, made even softer by torrential rains an hour earlier. In some areas, the mud came up to their knees.
The search focused on a long, narrow marsh drained by the army using special pump trucks.
Once the soldiers reached the end of the marsh, they turned around and walked back. And then back again.
"It's important not to miss anything," Ose said as he watched the soldiers nearly camouflaged by the dark gray mud. "As long as there is time left in the day, we will keep going up and down."
In another part of town, several dozen soldiers cleared mountains of rubble by hand from a waterfront neighborhood filled with gutted and teetering houses. Four people in the neighborhood were missing, said 67-year-old Sannojo Watanabe.
"That was my house right there," he said, pointing to a foundation with nothing atop it.
He surveyed the neighborhood: "There's nothing left here."
A total of 24,800 soldiers - backed by 90 helicopters and planes - were sent to comb through the rubble for buried remains, while 50 boats and 100 navy divers searched the waters up to 20 kilometers off the coast to find those swept out to sea.
The search is far more difficult than that for earthquake victims, who would mostly be under rubble. The tsunami could have left the victims anywhere.
"We just don't know where the bodies are," Ose said.
Also yesterday, Goshi Hosono, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan and member of his nuclear crisis management task force, slammed the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, for its handling of the crisis.
The plant was not properly prepared for the tsunami or for the loss of power that followed, he said. And TEPCO delayed the crucial venting of radioactive steam that built up immense pressure and may have contributed to hydrogen explosions that made the crisis even worse, he said. All those issues are being investigated, he said.
Hosono said the situation at the plant remained "extremely difficult," with radioactivity high in some areas and the transfer of contaminated water proving difficult.
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