Death toll from Japan earthquake continues to rise
Pastor Dale Morgan
Death toll from Japan earthquake continues to rise*
By JUNJI KUROKAWA
The Associated Press
Monday, June 16, 2008; 4:27 AM
KURIHARA, Japan -- Soldiers digging through the wreckage of a hot spring
resort buried in a landslide discovered the body of one of the missing
Monday, bringing the death toll in the weekend quake to 10, police said.
Rescuers kept up their search for the 12 people who remain missing from
Saturday's powerful quake in northern Japan, but hopes dimmed that any
of them would be found alive.
The body of a 58-year-old man was discovered at about noon at the hot
spring inn that was inundated by a torrent of mud, rocks and trees early
Saturday, police spokesman Naoshi Tokunaga said.
"We pulled out his body, but unfortunately, he was confirmed dead,"
Tokunaga said.
Three bodies were recovered from the resort's wreckage Sunday, and there
were at least another three victims still buried there.
"We are doing our best to find the three. But it has been difficult to
carry out operations due to excessive amounts of mud in the area,"
Tokunaga said.
More than 1,000 rescue and disaster officials _ including military
troops and aircraft _ have joined the search. They braved loose ground,
aftershocks and darkness, and so far have had good weather _ a major
factor since rain would hamper airlifts and possibly spark more deadly
landslides.
But the rescue efforts have been slowed by bad roads.
Several major points of access to the hardest-hit spots were virtually
unreachable by ground with tons of debris covering them. Soldiers using
backhoes were trying to dig their way to the hot spring area, but had to
start 5 miles away.
Soldiers caked in mud and using hand shovels recovered the bodies Sunday
of the inn's 80-year-old owner and two others buried when the
7.2-magnitude quake struck, triggering several major landslides.
Nine other people were missing in the quake-hit area. Another 100 living
in a hamlet near the resort remained stranded, some without water, and
had to be slowly airlifted out by police and military helicopters.
The two-story hot spring resort was inundated when the hill behind it
came crashing down.
The people at the resort were probably having breakfast or preparing for
the day ahead when the quake hit a 8:43 a.m. local time, and were not
likely to have been bathing, said Shinsuke Yamauchi, a local disaster
relief official. Yamauchi said it was a small, family-run inn.
A series of powerful aftershocks hampered search efforts. More than 470
aftershocks were recorded since the quake hit and officials warned more
landslides were possible.
The quake was centered in the northern prefecture (state) of Iwate, and
was located about 5 miles underground. It was felt as far away as Tokyo,
250 miles to the southwest.
The most recent major earthquake in Japan, one of the world's most
seismically active countries, killed more than 6,400 people in the city
of Kobe in January 1995.