Man rescued after drifting off Japan coast
TOKYO -- Hiromitsu Shinkawa was pushed out to sea while he clung to the roof of his home after a tsunami swept away his wife. For two days, he drifted off Japan's northeastern coast, trying to get the attention of helicopters and ships that passed by -- to no avail.
Finally, a Japanese military vessel Sunday spotted the 60-year-old waving a red cloth. He was about 10 miles offshore from the earthquake-ravaged city of Minamisoma, said Yoshiyuki Kotake, a Defense Ministry spokesman.
Shinkawa told his rescuers that the tsunami hit as he and his wife returned home to gather some belongings after Friday's quake. His wife was swept away, Kotake said.
"Several helicopters and ships passed by, but none of them noticed me," he was quoted by another defense agency spokesman, who refused to be identified by name, as saying.
Japanese troops used a small boat to pluck him from the ocean.
Military officials said Shinkawa was lucky that mild weather and relatively calm seas enabled him to stay afloat for nearly two days, the Kyodo News agency reported.
The rescue came as people across a devastated swath of Japan suffered for a third day without water, electricity and proper food, as the country grappled with the enormity of a massive earthquake and tsunami.
In Rikusentakata, a port city of more than 20,000 virtually wiped out by the tsunami, Etsuko Koyama escaped the water rushing through the third flood of her home but lost her grip on her daughter's hand.
She has not found her daughter. "I haven't given up hope yet," Koyama told public broadcaster NHK, wiping tears from her eyes.
In Sendai, 24-year-old Ayumi Osuga dug through the remains of her own house, her white mittens covered by dark mud. Osuga said she had been practicing origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into figures, with her three children when the quake stuck. She gathered her children -- aged 2 to 6 -- and fled in her car to higher ground with her husband.
"My family, my children. We are lucky to be alive," she said.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
