Rescuers, but no one left to rescue in Natori

A destroyed graveyard is seen in the earthquake and tsunami ravaged town of Natori, Japan on Monday.

story by MSNBC

photos by EPA
International Stream Coverage: http://www.livestation.com/ 

Natori, a coastal town in Japan, was virtually wiped out by the earthquake and tsunami. Rescue workers began to arrive on Monday, but they found few people to rescue. NBC News’ Ian Williams is one of the few reporters to reach what is left of the coastal town. He spoke by phone on Monday.

What is the scene like?

We are in Natori, a coastal area, up the coast from Sendai. The area close to the coast is just a complete wasteland – and this is one of the worst hit areas in the vicinity. The wave wiped just about everything away.

What was interesting today was seeing some of the first rescue teams going into the worst-affected parts. There is nothing much left – the tsunami pretty much razed the entire area closest to the sea.

A couple of houses are still standing. One of them actually had a school bus literally wrapped around the wall that it was slammed into by the wave.

The people in Natori had about half an hour warning that the tsunami was coming after the quake hit. So there were alarms and everyone tried to get out. But there is only one narrow road that leads back out of the coastal part of town.

A lot of people did get out, but a lot were also caught up in the wave. Officials don’t know the precise number of dead; they said there are still a lot of bodies they haven’t yet been recovered.

One of the strange things about this disaster is that no place is as well prepared as Japan for this kind of natural disaster. In many respects they have been rehearsing for this for years – in terms of the building standards, in terms of preparedness for tsunamis. But when it struck, it was so violent that not even the best system in the world was able to respond sufficiently quickly.

Search and rescue workers look for survivors in an earthquake and tsunami ravaged house in Natori, Japan on Monday. Click on the photo above to see a complete slideshow of the destruction in Japan.

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Have you met any survivors?

Yes, we met a number of people today who were coming back in for the first time to see what remained of their homes. Because of the mad scramble to get out ahead of the wave, a lot of families were split up – so a lot of people were still looking for loved ones.

We met one woman who was looking for two brothers. She found one of them – but not the other. And we went with her when she returned to what was left of their house –which was just a few pieces of wall. She broke down when she saw that because it was the first time she had been back since the wave hit. She was continuing to search for her brother and hadn’t given up hope that he would be in one of the shelters. There have been several shelters set up around the area mainly in schools or gymnasiums.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/14/6267912-rescuers-but-no-one-left-to-rescue-in-natori?GT1=43001

Other storries:

http://kirktanter.blogspot.com/2011/03/tide-of-bodies-overwhelms-quake-hit.html

http://kirktanter.blogspot.com/2011/03/quake-death-toll-soars-in-japan.html
http://kirktanter.blogspot.com/2011/03/hundreds-dead-after-quake-tsunami-slam.html
http://kirktanter.blogspot.com/2011/03/earthquake-moved-japan-by-8-feet.html