Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan bowed and paused for a minute of silence yesterday in front of one of the only buildings left standing in a town gutted by a massive tsunami, as he visited the pulverized northeastern coast for the first time.
US and Japanese troops resumed their all-out search of the coastline for any remaining bodies in what could be their last chance to find those swept out to sea. More than 15,500 people are still missing after the disaster, which officials fear may have killed about 25,000 people.
Kan went to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex soon after the wave hit, but yesterday marked his first visit to some of the dozens of villages, towns and cities wiped out in the March 11 disaster.
Dressed in the blue work clothes that have become almost a uniform for officials, Kan stopped first in Rikuzentakata — a town of about 20,000 people that was flattened by the torrent of water.
The town hall still stands, but all its windows are blown out and a tangle of metal and other debris is piled in front of it. Kan bowed his head for a minute of silence in front of the building. He met with the town’s mayor, whose 38-year-old wife was swept away in the wave and has been missing since.
Kan later visited an elementary school, which, like scores of schools and sports centers up and down the coast, is serving as an evacuation center.
“The government fully supports you until the end,” Kan told the 250 evacuees.
Megumi Shimanuki, whose family is living in a similar shelter 160km away from the power plant in Natori, said Kan didn’t spend enough time with people on the ground. Kan returned to Tokyo in the afternoon.
“The government has been too focused on the Fukushima power plant rather than the tsunami victims,” said Shimanuki, 35. “Both deserve attention.”
Up and down the coast, helicopters, planes and boats carrying US and Japanese troops scoured again yesterday for the dead. They found 30 bodies on Friday, most floating in coastal waters. So far, 11,800 deaths have been confirmed.
“Unfortunately, we’ve come across remains over the scope of our mission, so it may be more likely than you think” to find bodies at sea so long after the disaster, US Navy Lieutenant Anthony Falvo said.
Some may have sunk and just now be resurfacing. Others may never be found. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 37,000 of the 164,000 people who died in Indonesia simply disappeared, their bodies presumably washed out to sea.
The Japanese military stopped short of saying the search would end for good after today, but public affairs official Yoshiyuki Kotake said activities will be limited.
Police officers have also been searching for bodies in decimated towns inland, but in some cases their efforts have been complicated or even stymied by dangerous levels of radiation from the nuclear plant, which is 220km northeast of Tokyo.
People who live within 20km of the plant have been forced to leave, though residents are growing increasingly frustrated and have been sneaking back to check on their homes. Government officials warned on Friday that there were no plans to lift the evacuation order anytime soon.
Tadashi and Ritsuko Yanai and their one-month-old boy fled their home 10km from the plant after the quake. Baby Kaon has grown accustomed to life in a shelter routine, but his parents haven’t.
When asked if he had anything he would like to say to Kan, the 32-year-old father paused to think and then said: “We want to go home. That’s all, we just want to go home.”
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