Team says volcanic rocks led to deaths
Print Edition
RESCUERS searching the volcano that erupted without warning in Japan found dead hikers wedged between huge rocks and people half buried in ash, it emerged yesterday.
At least 47 people are now known to have died in Japan’s worst volcanic disaster in nearly 90 years.
But up to 24 are still missing, with fears some could be entombed in the thick, sticky ash that has coated the peak since last Saturday’s eruption.
Heavy rain forced police, troops and firefighters to abandon their search of Mount Ontake yesterday, the latest reminder of the ongoing danger posed by the 3,067-meter mountain, which is still billowing steam and toxic gas.
Police rescuers found ash 40-50 centimeters deep at a shrine on the peak when they first arrived, with some of those killed found collapsed and half-buried, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
Five bodies were stuck in between jagged boulders up to 3 meters across, which emergency workers had to smash using specialist rock-breaking tools to free them, the paper said.
Another rescuer told the Nikkan Sports daily that moving around on the bed of ash was difficult because of the way it had mixed with steam. “It sticks like damp concrete,” he said.
Rescue workers are having to tread extremely carefully because of worries that the blanket of ash they are walking on could be hiding crevices, or unstable rocks.
Autopsies have revealed that hikers, many of whom had been enjoying lunch at the peak in the autumn sunshine, died largely from injuries caused by stones hurled out in the initial explosive eruption at up to 300 kilometers per hour.
“The bulk of the rocks are estimated to be between the size of a human fist and a head,” said Takayuki Kaneko, a vulcanologist at the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute.
“They fell so densely that some broke up (after hitting other rocks and objects) and scattered,” he told public broadcaster NHK.
“I think people there must have had no idea where to run and been plunged into panic.”
Among those confirmed dead was a 42-year-old deaf woman, Hiromi Inooka, who was out for the day with her hearing-impaired husband, Tetsuya, 45.
His body has still not been found.
All 47 dead have been identified, but authorities say based on notifications they have received from family and friends, 24 people are unaccounted for.
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