Japanese PM visits flood-hit town as rescuers search for missing
JOSO - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday visited disaster-struck Joso - north of Tokyo - in the aftermath of massive flooding that killed at least three people, as rescuers raced against time to find more than a dozen still missing.
Parts of Joso - a community of 65,000 residents - were washed away on Thursday when a levee on the Kinugawa River gave way, flooding an area that reportedly spans 32 square kilometres (12 square miles) after the worst rains in decades.
Dramatic aerial footage showed whole houses being swept away by raging torrents in scenes eerily reminiscent of the devastating tsunami that crushed Japan's northeast coast four years ago.
"I felt more dead than alive," said a man who was rescued on Saturday morning after days trapped inside his home. "I lived by drinking tea as there was no food. I'm so glad that they came to rescue me," he told public broadcaster NHK.
Akinori Nagaoka, 39, returned home with his son to find the first floor of the house flooded with muddy brown water. "I have never seen anything like this before. I wonder when we can come back and live like it was," he told reporters.
As the water receded, police officers wearing life vests shoved poles into thick muddy ground to locate possible victims. "The city is completely destroyed - we need people's help," said 47-year-old Shinichi Ishizuka.
On Saturday morning, Abe visited the disaster-hit town - about 60 kilometres (37 miles) outside Tokyo - as some 2,000 troops, police and firefighters were deployed to rescue more than 100 people still trapped in water-logged buildings, the bulk of whom were patients and medical staff inside a flooded hospital, local media said.
"We're doing our best to make things safe by reconstructing the broken (river) bank as quickly as possible to prevent a repeat of this disaster," Abe told reporters.
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