HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Prefecture--Bodies are strewn across the wreckage of this community in northeastern Japan, left devastated by Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Prefecture--Bodies are strewn across the wreckage of this community in northeastern Japan, left devastated by Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
Asahi Shimbun reporters heard reports that 200 bodies had been found in Higashi-Matsushima's Nobiru district. No one was able to confirm the figure to Asahi Shimbun reporters who reached the district on Sunday afternoon, but there were many bodies in the debris.
A middle-aged volunteer firefighter pointed and said, "If you are looking for a body, there is one over there."
A white corpse, probably of an adult male, was hanging from the branch of a 5-meter pine tree. A gray jacket covered the corpse's face.
A 63-year-old man said he was looking for his 86-year-old mother, who had been living in an old-people's home.
He evacuated to an elementary school on a hill after the earthquake struck, but the tsunami swamped the building.
The man said people had rushed for the stairs to the second floor. He and others helped pull out people who were about to be swallowed by the water, but he said there were many people they were unable to help.
He could not confirm the report of about 200 dead in the district.
The volunteer firefighter was also unable to confirm the death toll.
"In any event, the hamlet over there was completely destroyed," the worker said.
Kenichi Ogata, 41, was looking for his 44-year-old wife, Miho. He covered his face with a blue towel and wept.
Ogata said he had returned home immediately after the quake and found a peeled apple. "Miho prepared it for me for when I returned from work," he said.
He ate the apple and began searching outside. He was relieved when he heard his wife had fled by car, but he found the overturned car on Sunday. There was no one inside.
"She was swept away. There is no hope," he said crying.
Masaru Abe was crouched by a river, looking at an overturned white car submerged in water. He asked our reporter, "Do you think that car is a Toyota Isis?"
He thought it was the car driven by his wife, Atsuko, 38, who worked at a nearby facility for senior citizens.
The reporter responded, "She may have evacuated and may want to get in touch with you."
You may be right," he said.
Still staring at the river, he murmured: "When we are up against nature, we all have to die some time. But, still ... ."
Among the corpses in the wreckage was a dead man found lying on a sofa. The body of an elderly woman lay under a pile of rubble.
Members of the Self-Defense Forces were standing on rubble using long poles to search for survivors. One unit rescued two senior citizens Sunday morning. Another unit discovered 15 to 20 bodies.
One SDF member, who had been working since early morning, said, "We can see that there are people there, but we cannot carry them out because they have been crushed by the rubble."
Bodies are wrapped in blankets or blue vinyl sheets and taken to the Higashi-Matsushima civic gymnasium, which is serving as a temporary morgue.
According to a volunteer firefighter, 58 bodies were found in Nobiru on Saturday and at least 50 on Sunday.
Nobuo Atami, 55, sighed, wiping away tears. The dead body of his 79-year-old mother, Tsuyoshi, was wrapped in a vinyl sheet in front of him.
"I thought maybe she might have been saved, but it was not to be."
Atami, who lived with his mother, said he had been working at Sendai port when the earthquake hit. He survived the tsunami by fleeing to the second floor and had spent Friday night there.
He had walked home and found his mother lying face-up in the yard on Sunday morning.
"She looked like she was smiling," Atami said. "I think she died without suffering. In some ways, this is better because I found the body so soon."
(This article was written by Atsushi Matsukawa, Takahiro Sasaki and Tatsuya Chikusa.)