NAKAMINATO, Japan — While nuclear experts were grappling with possible meltdowns at two reactors after the devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami in northern Japan, the country was mobilizing a nationwide rescue effort to pluck survivors from collapsed buildings and rush food and water to hundreds of thousands of people without water, electricity, heat or telephone service.
Japan Pushes to Rescue Survivors as Quake Toll Rises
13/03/2011 23:28
People searched for survivors of a collapsed building in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, on Saturday. More Photos » NYTimes.com is compiling photographs from readers in the region affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Entire villages in parts of Japan’s northern Pacific coast have vanished under a wall of water, and many communities are cut off, leaving the country trying to absorb the scale of the destruction even as fears grew over the unfolding nuclear emergency. Japanese news media estimates of the death toll from the natural disasters ranged from 1,300 to 1,700, but the total could rise. Many communities were scrambling to find the missing; in the port town of Minamisanriku, nearly 10,000 people were unaccounted for, according to the public broadcaster NHK. Much of the northeast was impassable, and by late Saturday rescuers had not arrived in the worst-hit areas. Most of the deaths were from drowning, but Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and firefighters were working to prevent a higher toll, rushing up the coast in helicopters and struggling to put out fires burning in industrial complexes or sweeping through Japan’s many vulnerable wooden homes. Hundreds of thousands of people were being evacuated from the flooding and quake damage, as well as the threat of radiation exposure around the nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture. To aid in the rescue efforts, the United States, which has several military bases in Japan, is sending in helicopters and destroyers. It is also sending an aircraft carrier, theRonald Reagan, which has the ability to act as a hospital as well as to convert seawater into drinking water, said a spokesman for the Navy’s Seventh Fleet in Japan. Japan had clearly learned the lessons of the devastating Kobe earthquake of 1995, when the government refused to accept offers of international help early enough, leading to criticism that some of the 6,000 deaths could have been avoided. Severe aftershocks continued to rock a traumatized country. The United States Geological Survey recorded 90 quakes off the eastern coast on Saturday alone, five of them with magnitudes larger than 6.0. Kyodo News reported more than 125 aftershocks since Friday afternoon’s earthquake. The continual swaying and rolling of the ground deepened the disorientation of a nation accustomed to disaster, but which has not experienced anything on this scale for generations. Around two nuclear plants along the northern coast of Honshu Island where cooling systems had failed for five reactors, the Japanese authorities were evacuating people and handing out iodine. Some experts believe iodine can help head off long-term effects of radiation exposure, including thyroid cancer. The breadth of the natural disasters and the potential for untold nuclear damage pose new challenges for a fragile government that has struggled with political scandals, continued economic woes and public frustration over its inability to weaken entrenched bureaucrats. Aerial photographs of ravaged coastal areas showed a string of cities and villages leveled by the power of the tsunami. Plumes of black smoke rose from burning industrial plants. Stranded ships bobbed in the water. Town after town reported that parts of their population were unaccounted for. Survivors gathered on rooftops, frantically shouting or signaling for help. With phone service cut throughout the area, some radio and television stations broadcast pleas from people trying desperately to find their family members or at least to assure them that they were alive. “This is Kimura Ayako in Sapporo, looking for the Tanakas in Soma,” one caller said. “We are O.K. Please tell us your location.” Hatsue Takahashi of Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture sent out a message on NHK Education TV to Rina Takahashi in the same town: “Hang on,” she said. “I’ll go there to meet you.” And Sachiko Atara of Iwaki city called out across the airwaves in hopes of reaching Hideharu Komatsu in Sendai: “We are all O.K., waiting for your contact.”
In Oarai, a port about 150 miles south of hard-hit Sendai, fishing boats, truck and cars lay 100 yards back from the water’s edge, deposited in a jagged line like seashells left behind by the farthest reach of powerful waves. Some fishing boats had capsized; those swept into town by the tsunami teetered on their sides, or were tossed upside down. Even as estimates of the death toll from Friday’s quake rose, Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, said 100,000 troops would be mobilized for the increasingly desperate rescue recovery effort. Meanwhile, several ships from theUnited States Navy joined the rescue effort. The McCampbell and the Curtis Wilbur, both destroyers, prepared to move into position off Miyagi Prefecture. In addition, the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group was expected to arrive Sunday. Besides serving as a hospital, it can also be used as a platform for refueling helicopters from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Japan was also accepting offers of help from other countries. Convoys of Japanese military helicopters could be seen flying over the earthquake zone on Saturday, and trucks filled with soldiers were moving into the area. While aftershocks from the earthquake continued, the tsunami wreaked the most damage. Tsunami experts estimated that despite Japan’s extensive warning systems and drills, there would only have been between 15 and 30 minutes after the earthquake struck before the tsunami washed in, leaving those in coastal areas precious little time to flee. One-third of Kesennuma, a city of 74,000, was reported to be submerged, the BBC said, and photographs showed fires continued to rage there. Iwate, a coastal city of 23,000 people, was reported to be almost completely destroyed, the BBC said. Local television here reported that the authorities had found 300 to 400 bodies in the town of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate Prefecture. In Minamisoma, in Fukushima Prefecture, 97 residents of a retirement home were found dead. And an additional 100 bodies were found Saturday in Miyagi Prefecture, near the quake’s epicenter, bringing the total in those places to more than 500. Although aftershocks were continuing to rattle Tokyo, signs of normality were appearing. Flight schedules were resuming at Tokyo’s principal airports, Narita and Haneda, and most of Tokyo’s trains and subways were operating. Farther north, aerial photos showed floodwaters receding from the runways at the airport in Sendai, perhaps the hardest hit of the coastal cities. Military units were in Sendai on Saturday, working at evacuation shelters or helping search-and-rescue teams. Sendai’s Web site, posted in Tokyo because much of the north was still without electricity, recorded a grim list of the toll: 1.4 million homes in the city without electricity, and 500,000 homes without water. At a school turned refugee center, Nakano Elementary School, 350 people were lifted out by a Self-Defense Forces helicopter, and 400 people in Arahama Elementary School were in the process of being plucked out by helicopters. “The rescue is going on through the night, of course,” Michael Tonge, a teacher from Britain, said early Sunday morning from his home in Sendai. Mr. Tonge said many people in Sendai were still without power, although his home had not lost electricity. “The government is telling people not to use it too much as they need the power to help bring the nuclear reactor under control,” he said. No buildings had collapsed in his neighborhood, Mr. Tonge said, and people were not panicking — typical of a nation accustomed to order and schooled to stay calm and constructive. “The few shops open have people queuing nicely,” he said, “with no pushing or fighting or anything.” He said he hoped the earthquake would not come to be known as the “Sendai quake.” “I haven’t heard it being called the Sendai quake here, but if that’s what people are calling it, then that is unfortunate,” said Mr. Tonge, who lives there with his wife, Yuka, and their 3-year-old daughter, Aoi. “This is a beautiful city with nice people. A great place to live.”
European Pressphoto Agency
By MARTIN FACKLER and MARK McDONALD
Published: March 12, 2011
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