21 March,2011 07:24 AM IST | | Agencies
Two survivors, including an elderly woman, have been rescued from the wreckage of a home in Japan's northeast, nine days after the massive earthquake and tsunami, authorities say.
Hope still alive: Sumi Abe and her grandson Jin Abe were in the kitchen
when the quake struck trapping them both under the debris. Pic/AFP
"An 80-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy were found under debris," said a police spokesman in the devastated city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture."Their temperatures were quite low but they were conscious. Details of their condition are not immediately known. They have been already rescued and sent to hospital."
Sumi Abe and her grandson Jin Abe were in the kitchen when the quake struck on March 11.
The house collapsed with them inside but the grandson was able to reach food from the refrigerator, helping them to survive.The boy was said to be shivering with no feeling in one leg. There have been few such miracle rescues, with almost 21,000 people confirmed as dead or listed as missing.
On Saturday, troops announced they had found a man thought to have survived for eight days in a half-destroyed house in the earthquake and tsunami zone, but it later turned out he was actually an evacuee who had returned to his home.
Radiation fears
Japan's Health Ministry announced yesterday that tests had detected excess amounts of radioactive elements on canola and chrysanthemum greens. Tokyo's tap water, where iodine turned up Friday, now has cesium. Rain and dust are also tainted.
