Search for bodies continues in tsunami-ravaged town under scorching heat (JAPAN)

Riot police officers from Aichi Prefectural Police search for the bodies of those missing in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on July 9, 2011. (Mainichi)

OTSUCHI, Iwate -- Four months after an earthquake-triggered tsunami devastated this fishing community, about 150 riot police officers carefully combed through rubble, sludge and muddy water in a desperate search for hundreds of people still missing.

More than 5,000 people remain unaccounted for since the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that struck a wide swathe of northeastern Japan, and 827 people are still missing in Otsuchi alone, the biggest number in Iwate Prefecture. As of July 12, 787 people had been found dead in the town. A Mainichi reporter and a photographer accompanied about 150 riot police officers from Aichi Prefectural Police on July 9 on their difficult mission to find even "fractured bones" in water channels filled with debris and sludge, the remains of destroyed homes and elsewhere in Otsuchi.

At 9 a.m. on July 9, the officers were divided into three units and headed to downtown and harbor areas. A power shovel was scraping out sludge and debris from a 2-meter-wide water channel, while officers, wearing masks and goggles, were carefully pushing the wreckage aside with shovels. They mostly found fragments of lumber and galvanized sheets but no bodies. The riot troopers, in their 20s, were carrying out their mission silently under the scorching heat surrounded by foul smells and flies noisily buzzing round. The temperature rose to 36.4 degrees Celsius in the neighboring city of Kamaishi on that day.

More..
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110713p2a00m0na016000c.html

Ishinomaki refuses to give up on the missing 4 months later

A 37-year-old woman obtained a license to operate heavy machinery to enhance the search on July 11 for her daughter at the girl's elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. (Hiroki Endo)

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.

more..
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201107120474.html

Japan PM urges nuclear-free future

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Wednesday that the country must gradually reduce its reliance on atomic power with the eventual goal of becoming nuclear-free.

Four months after the March 11 quake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident, the world's worst since Chernobyl 25 years ago, Kan has repeatedly argued that Japan must focus more on renewables.

Speaking in a televised press conference, he said: "By reducing its reliance on nuclear power gradually, we will aim to become a society which can exist without nuclear power."

"Considering the grave risk of nuclear accidents, we strongly feel that we cannot just carry on based on the belief that we must only try to ensure (nuclear) safety."

more..http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110713/wl_asia_afp/japandisasteraccidentnuclearenergypoliticspm