Coming to see homes, they see horror
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Houses and cars are whisked away. Garbages and sludge turned rice paddles into landfills. The air had an acute foul smell in Sendai's coastal Wakabanashi District two days after the ravage of the ferocious quake and tsunami.
The village in Wakabanashi, like many others, was swamped. The dead and unaccounted-for have not been counted into the official death toll, as Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) just reached the area Sunday morning.
"The government said many of the residents here have been safely relocated, but I can't wait to come and see how it is like with my own eyes," said 67-year-old Shigemizu Saito, who has lost contact since the catastrophe with his 83-year-old mother lived there.
Saito was not alone. Hiroyuki Sato, 40, came with his mother Taeko and wife. The house of Taeko was buried in mud and splintered wood, with only a brown roof still can be seen. The two woman wailed instantly when they saw the scene.
"It is horrible. Everything is gone...How can I continue with my life?" Taeko said while crying.
They met their neighbor Kentaro Sugawara, and learned that the neighbour's father was dead and the body was yet to be claimed.
Remaining unharmed in the village is a four-story concrete nursing home, where more than 200 elderly people and about 50 staff were trapped.
A police who gave his family name as Kunii, from Gifu Prefecture, told Xinhua the search and rescue work began Sunday morning here, with one in unstable condition taken away by SDF helicopters already.
"SDF officers, police and firemen are taking the other old people out of the building to safer shelters, and searching if there are any others alive in the neighboring area," Kunii said.
People eager to get into the area to look for their relatives were told not to do so, as secondary disasters could happen any minute. Instead, they look from afar silently, lasting dozens of minutes, in tears.
Many of the victims are believed to be people over 60, as young Japanese often choose not to live in such villages and moved to large cities, making rescue and reconstruction even more difficult.
Naoto Takeuchi, chief of the Miyagi prefectural police, said that Friday's great quake and the ensuing tsunami is likely to claim more than 10,000 lives in Miyagi alone.
The Japanese government announced Sunday that it is doubling the number of troops for the rescue effort. There will now be 100, 000 troops. The death toll already topped 2,000 and kept rising at a pace faster than imagined.
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