Japan's Quake : Woman, grandson found alive 9 days later



Jin Abe, 16, is rescued from the wreckage of his house in Ishinomaki, northern Japan yesterday, nine days after the earthquake devastated the country. His 80-year-old grandmother was also found alive. Meanwhile, the battered country received good news when it restored power to a crippled nuclear reactor. — Reuters picture

TOKYO: An 80-year-old woman and her teenage grandson were rescued yesterday in northeastern Japan when the youth pulled himself out of their flattened two-storey house nine days after the earthquake and tsunami.

Jin Abe, 16, was seen calling out for help from the roof of the collapsed home in the hard-hit city of Ishinomaki, said the Miyagi prefectural police. Like other homes in northeastern Japan, they had lost electricity and telephone service in the March 11 earthquake.

He led them inside to his grandmother, Sumi Abe. Both were conscious but weak and had survived on the food they had in their refrigerator, said police.

The woman could not get out of the house because she has trouble walking, and the teenager, who was suffering from a low body temperature, had been unable until yesterday to pull himself from the wreckage, police said.

They were found by police who realised they couldn't get the woman out of the collapsed house and had to call other rescuers, he said. -- AP

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