ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Four months after the tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake engulfed Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, some families are still searching for their loved ones.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Four months after the tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake engulfed Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, some families are still searching for their loved ones.
Six students and one teacher at the school are still missing.
One 37-year-old mother, who said she had dug in the wreckage with a shovel for her 12-year-old daughter on the day after the earthquake, now uses heavy machinery.
She obtained a license in June to help her search. She said she wants to bring her daughter back home as soon as possible.
She tearfully asked National Police Agency chief Takaharu Ando, who visited the school, to ensure that the police continue to help look for the missing.
Ando said he would do all he could. About 57,800 police officers from across Japan have been dispatched to the quake-affected prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. At the school, about 160 policemen from the Osaka prefectural police department were using shovels to remove banks of mud and sand. Between June 11 and July 11, 136 bodies were recovered in the three quake-affected prefectures.