Thousands of rescuers yesterday combed through the wreckage of homes engulfed by landslides in western Japan in the slim hope of finding survivors, a day after a wall of mud claimed at least 39 lives.
Police officers, firefighters and soldiers worked through the night in a desperate bid to find 26 people still unaccounted for among the sludge and rubble.
Dozens of houses were buried when hillsides collapsed after torrential downpours in Hiroshima that saw more than a month’s rainfall in just three hours.
Photo: EPA
Throughout Wednesday there were moments of hope, with survivors who had sought refuge on the upper floors of their homes airlifted to safety, but there were also bodies carried away from the devastation wrapped in blankets or plastic sheeting.
Members of a local high-school baseball team were among teenagers who kept up an all-night vigil for one of their number, whose half-submerged house was the focus of floodlight efforts.
The network said the search at what remained of the property continued into yesterday morning, but neither the boy, nor his father, had been found.
Aerial footage showed military personnel operating heavy machinery to clear debris and police officers pulling at trees that had smashed into houses. Trained search dogs were also being taken over the muddy ground.
Among the 39 known victims were two brothers, aged two and 11, who were confirmed dead after being pulled out of their inundated home.
A neighbor who took part in the search told the Fuji network that the ground floor of the house was almost completely filled with mud.
“We collected shovels from the neighborhood. The parents just had to believe the boys could hear them. They kept saying: ‘Breathe!’ and ‘Reply!’ The mother stood on the mud and just kept shouting,” he said.
It emerged yesterday that a 53-year-old rescuer who was killed in a secondary landslide on Wednesday had died with a toddler in his arms.
Noriyoshi Masaoka, a firefighter with 35 years’ experience, had battled through the slurry of the initial mountain collapse to rescue five people before going back to help more.
Rescuers were yesterday racing against the possibility of further dire weather, which threatened to dislodge more of the water-logged mountain.
Unseasonally heavy rains have pummelled Japan in recent weeks, sparking landslides and floods in numerous parts of the mountainous and densely populated country.
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