RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan – The elderly couple fled their home on foot as the warning sirens blared. But they could not keep up with their neighbors and fell behind as the tsunami rushed in.Nearly a week later, 71-year-old Taeko Kanno and her husband are still missing.
“I think there is no hope,” said Katsuo Maiya, Kanno’s brother-in-law. “I can’t find them. The only thing I can do is wait until the military collects their bodies.”
As retrieving bodies increasingly becomes the focus of rescue crews in Japan’s northeast, it’s clear that Friday’s earthquake and tsunami – believed to have killed more than 10,000 – took their heaviest toll on the elderly in this rapidly aging nation, where nearly one in four people is over 65.
Many, unable to flee, perished. Survivors lost their daily medicines. At least some international rescue teams ended their efforts Thursday, acknowledging there was little prospect left of finding missing people still alive.
“We have no more tasks,” said Pete Stevenson, a firefighter heading Britain’s 70-strong team. “The Japanese government have told us they are now moving from search and rescue to the recovery phase.”
He insisted their departure wasn’t related to any fears of radiation from the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant, which lies about 90 miles (150 kilometers) south.
The official death toll climbed over 5,300 today and is expected to top 10,000.
In the town of Kamaishi, American and British rescue teams completed their final sweeps, and Japanese mechanical diggers began the task of clearing collapsed homes, offices and stores.
Crews found more than a dozen bodies, some trapped underneath homes flipped on their roofs, another at the wheel of his overturned car. In three days of searching the battered coast, they found no survivors.
“There are probably dozens of bodies we just can’t reach,” said Heather Heath, a 38-year old British firefighter. “The water can force people under floorboards and into gaps we can’t search. It’s such a powerful force.”
For survivors, in a still-wintry climate, the battle is to keep healthy and stay alive.