ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Amid all the grieving across Japan, one scene stood out Monday.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Amid all the grieving across Japan, one scene stood out Monday.
As aftershocks jolted the devastated city center in Ishinomaki, the families of two missing kindergarten children braved the rubble-strewn streets here in hopes of finding their loved ones alive.
Instead, they came across a charred school bus that had been carrying the children home after Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit.
Mika Sato, 36, peered inside and saw the body of her 6-year-old daughter Airi in the clothes she was wearing when she left to attend kindergarten last Friday.
"Airi! Airi!" she screamed.
The bodies of Airi and three other children were found in the battered bus, along with that of a kindergarten staffer who accompanied them.
The four children appeared to have held on to one another.
"You were all together. You must have been scared. You must have felt hot," Mika whispered to her daughter as she stroked the body.
"Don't worry, we came to pick you up. Papa will carry you piggyback home," she told Airi.
Airi and other children boarded the bus at the kindergarten for the drive home soon after the temblor hit.
The city center was then ravaged by tsunami and fires that prevented people from looking for their loved ones until Monday.
Sato and her family members were joined in their search by the family of Asuka Sasaki, 6, who was riding the same bus.
Because the kindergarten stands on a hill, it was spared the destruction that occurred elsewhere.
To get the children to their homes, the bus had to drive down the hill. The director said the kindergarten decided it would be safer for the children if they left immediately and went home to their mothers.
The bus driver once returned to the kindergarten to seek help and has not been seen since, according to officials.
Airi and Asuka were both to graduate from the kindergarten on Tuesday to go on to primary school.
Hanging on a kindergarten wall are portraits of children, including one drawn by Airi, who her family said loved painting.
The family brought her cap back to their home, but left her portrait on the wall, together with those by other children.
"You are going to graduate with all others," Airi's father said.