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A wave of relief: In this March 11, 2011 photo, Toya Chiba, a reporter with the Iwate Tokai newspaper, is swept by a tsunami in Kamaishi, northeastern Japan. Mr. Chiba survived with only scratches and bruises after being swept away for about 30 metres. — Photo: AP/Kamaishi Port Office via Kyodo News
Japanese police on Thursday found the bodies of 10 tsunami victims in the first search of a 10-km zone around an atomic plant, as emergency crews battled to contain a nuclear crisis.
Hundreds of police wearing white protective suits and face masks scoured rubble-strewn neighbourhoods near the plant for victims of the giant wave that smashed into Japan's northeast coast more than a month ago.
Some of the remains were found inside cars and others were “buried in debris, so that the sight of just a foot or other body part would lead to the discovery of a whole body”, a Fukushima police spokesman told AFP.
The 300-strong force was to continue their search Friday in the no-man's land — pushing closer towards the facility after they started a wider search on April 3 that covered the outer areas of the 20-km exclusion zone. Before the search began, police said it was difficult to estimate how many bodies were in the 10-km danger zone around the plant, although the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper put the figure at around 1,000 tsunami victims.
At the plant itself, emergency crews continued efforts to stop radioactive leaks into the Pacific, erecting a seabed silt fence to slow the spread of contaminants to sea and pumping highly toxic runoff water into tanks.
