Japan launches a search more important for the victims of the earthquake

The members of the Japanese self-defense forces are carrying research more still for 12 000 people who have been missing after the earthquake on March 11 and the tsunami.

The US Army and the Japanese police also took part in the research, which will involve 25,000 persons, 90 aircraft and 50 ships over the next two days.

The research is covering areas coastal and inland of the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, with the waters off the coast. It will also include areas within a radius of 30 kilometres of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power which was not already covered.

Official figures show that the earthquake and tsunami, with replicas on April 7 and 11, killed approximately 14 300 people.

An activist with an anti-nuclear mask takes part in a rally against nuclear power plants in Tokyo on Sunday. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

In the town of Shichigahamamachi, Monday, a line of about two dozen Japanese soldiers walked in unison through soggy and muddy Earth, plunging their poles about 60 centimetres into the muck to ensure that they lack any body buried below.

The research focused on a marsh drained in recent weeks by members of the infantry regiment 22 of the army with special pump trucks.

Several dozens of other soldiers cleared mountains of rubble by hand to a waterfront neighborhood filled with houses emptied and teetering. Four people in the neighborhood were missing, said 67 Sannojo Watanabe.

"It was my home here," he said, pointing to a foundation with nothing at the top of it.

He surveyed the District: "There is nothing left here."

In all, 370 soldiers of the regiment were looking for a dozen people still missing from the Shichigahamamachi. The regiment was to research the area with a quota more small, but have tripled the number of soldiers, he was with intense research of two days, said colonel Akira Kun itomo, the Commander of the regiment.

The research is much more difficult than that for the earthquake victims, which would mainly be buried under the rubble, said Michihiro Ose, a spokesman for the regiment. The tsunami may have left victims anywhere, or even withdrawn their towards the sea.

"We just don't know where are the bodies," he said.

Bodies found both weeks after the disaster are likely to be unrecognizable, black and swollen, dare to say.

"We would not even know if they are male or female," he said.

First intense scanning of the Army being for body discovered 339, while his second place 99 spokesperson of the Ministry of defence, Norikazu Muratani, said. Numbers in the search for Monday were not immediately available.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, body found along the Indonesian coast for several months later as people cleared debris in reconstruction efforts. However, 37,000 of 164 000 people who died in Indonesia simply disappeared, their bodies washed likely to the sea.

Last week, two underwater robots provided by the Institute of International rescue systems, non profit led to the research of five days in the waters off the coast of the northeastern coast of the Japan close to three cities devastated.

Robots are cars, houses and other debris in the sea, but no body, said Mika Murata, an official of the Institute.

The Japanese Government has been criticized for his response to the earthquake, tsunami and the subsequent nuclear disaster, with some members of the opposition of the country, urging Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan answers question from a legislator to a budget Committee meeting in the upper House of Parliament in Tokyo on Monday. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Monday, Kan said in a sometimes hostile Parliament that his Government is that its possible to take control of the radiation leaks at nuclear plant, which prompted the Government to evacuate residents of an area of 20 km autour shut down reactors.

"The nuclear accident is still underway," he said. "The priority is now to stabilize it."

In Fukushima Prefecture, the Government launched an operation to euthanize some of farm animals in the area of renaming to the left.

Six officials, including veterinarians, entered the area Monday, the first day of the mission. There are more than 370 livestock farms, in the exclusion zone horses with 4,000 cattle, 30 000 pigs, 630 000 chickens and 100. But many of these animals died or faced with famine because their owners have been evacuated from the region. Some of them remain outside.

The plan is to kill weakened animals and disinfecting carcasses. A veterinarian said animals found living will get medical examinations. The Prefecture said it will not animals kill unless their owners agree because there was no law stipulating what should be done in such a situation.

People are concerned about pets, in the exclusion zone too.

A coalition of welfare of the animals to the Japan hope that the Government will enable it to continue to search for animals which have been abandoned.

With Craig Dale files back the CBC links to accessibility

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