Over 15,000 dead or missing as search for quake victims picks up

SENDAI — The search for victims of Japan’s massive earthquake has gradually expanded across a wider area, with access improved by the removal of debris left by tsunami, rescue officials said Thursday, the seventh day since the quake.
Meanwhile, fuel shortages have hampered the delivery of relief supplies to shelters where survivors are staying, while also limiting the use of heavy machinery and heating appliances, they said.
The number of those who died or are unaccounted for has exceeded 15,000—more than 5,400 deaths and nearly 9,600 missing, while some 380,000 are still staying in about 2,000 shelters in eight prefectures, the National Police Agency said, based on its noon tally.
Around 2,000 recovered bodies were identified Thursday in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, of which 870 were returned to their families, according to the NPA.
The number of partially or completely destroyed buildings reached 100,396, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Yukihiko Akutsu, parliamentary secretary of the Cabinet Office, said in Miyagi Prefecture he was instructed by Ryu Matsumoto, state minister for disaster management, to focus from Thursday on livelihood support for survivors staying at shelters.
In the severely hit coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate, the development in rubble removal has enabled the Self-Defense Forces to build roads so rescue workers can search for victims across greater areas.
Mayor Futoshi Toba said, ‘‘There were some areas where we could not enter, but now we can go anywhere (in the city) by car.’‘
He added, however, ‘‘We need fuel for heating, activating heavy machines and delivering relief goods to shelters, but we face difficulties.’‘

The prefectural government of Miyagi has almost completed confirming isolated areas from the air, and it will start distributing relief materials to these areas by helicopter, one of its officials said.
Sendai Airport, which was submerged by a tsunami following the quake, reopened part of its runways for use by police and SDF airplanes to transport relief materials. It has not been decided when commercial flights will be resumed.
As another development, express bus lines between Sendai and Morioka as well as Morioka and Aomori were resumed Thursday, connecting all of the six prefectural capitals, including Akita, Yamagata and Fukushima, in the Tohoku region.
In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, meanwhile, Mayor Hiroshi Kameyama told the municipal task force meeting that the number of missing people in the city of 160,000 will reach around 10,000.
On Thursday, temperatures in the quake-hit areas in northeastern Japan dropped to midwinter levels, marking 5.9 degrees below zero in Morioka, Iwate, 2.7 degrees below zero in Sendai, Miyagi, and 3.5 degrees below zero in the city of Fukushima.

At a shelter in Sendai, all of the 400 survivors staying had received blankets by Wednesday. One 65-year-old woman said, however, that she had woken during the night ‘‘due to the cold.’‘
As temperatures are expected to remain low in these areas through Friday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency called on residents to take care.
In the heavily damaged coastal city of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, meanwhile, elementary as well as junior and senior high schools reopened for the first time since the quake.
At prefecture-run Ofunato High School, around 250 students arrived on foot or by bicycle. First-grader Ayumi Urashima, 16, said, ‘‘On the way to school, I met one of my friends who I had not been able to contact. We hugged each other.’’