Nearly Ten Thousand Missing From Japanese Coastal Town
Time reports:
More than half of the population of Minamisanriku was unaccounted for on Saturday, adding to concerns that the death toll in Japan will rise to exorbitant heights over the next few days.
The small port town of Minamisanriku, which is located in the Miyagi Prefecture, close to the epicenter of Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, is a popular tourist destination, and has been utterly devastated by the quake and resulting tsunami.
Saturday in Japan, Kyodo News Agency reported that 9,500 out of 17,000 residents were unaccounted for in the fishing community, as the area has been one of the hardest hit by the disaster. Government officials stated that the fate of the missing was still unknown more than 24 hours following the earthquake, as there has been no contact those who are missing. Local authorities are unsure if the residents fled in the wake of the quake, or if they were wiped out by the destruction.
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