Policeman amazed to find survivors 9 days after quake in Miyagi
A police sergeant who rescued an 80-year-old woman and her teenage grandson Sunday in Miyagi Prefecture expressed amazement Monday that anybody had managed to survive nine days in a crushed house following the mega earthquake that hit northeastern Japan.
”I’m astonished that there were people who stayed alive,” Yoichi Seino of the prefecture’s Ishinomaki police station told the media. ”I’m so happy (to hear that).”
In Tokyo, top government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters he ”takes his hat off” to the two who survived the harsh condition.
Jin Abe, 16-year-old, who pulled alive from the demolished house meets his father after 9 days.
”I believe this kind of miraculous event is inspiring news to all the quake-hit victims who are going through difficult situations as evacuees,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said, after encouraging staff involved in the quake relief operations.
Four Ishinomaki police officers were searching the coastal city for missing victims Sunday afternoon when they heard a feeble voice and walked towards it, he said. They found 16-year-old Jin Abe on the rooftop of a collapsed house, shivering in the cold.
When the police offered him help, Jin asked them to ”save my grandma,” Seino said.
The officers shifted the rubble and found Sumi Abe in a narrow spot in the kitchen where she was sitting covered in a futon, surrounded by toppled objects, including a refrigerator and a wardrobe.
Sumi, who looked exhausted, burst into tears when the police told her, ”Don’t you worry any more,” Seino said.
After the rescue, the sergeant asked Jin what he would like to become in the future and the boy cheerfully responded, ”An artist,” Seino said.
Jin's house used to be located at ◯, and they were rescued at ↙
Michio Kobayashi, a doctor at the Japanese Red Cross Ishinomaki Hospital where the two survivors were treated, told the press that the two were in ”good health and eating breakfast well.”
Jin and his grandmother survived the wintry weather since the magnitude 9.0 quake by covering themselves in layers of clothing and blankets and taking sustenance from scarce leftovers in the fridge such as yoghurt and coke, the Ishinomaki station said.
Their family and rescue workers had been looking for them after the family earlier received a call from the boy, saying that he and his grandmother were trapped in their house. But the rescuers were unable to locate the house as it had been flattened by the tsunami.
Source:Kyodo
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