Japanese relief team continues to look for signs of life in Beichuan

BEICHUAN, China-A Japanese disaster relief team on Sunday continued to look for signs of life in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, almost a week after a powerful earthquake hit the area.The 60-member team split into two groups, one leaving for downtown Qushan in the province's Beichuan County and another working at a school in a separate, mountainous area of the town.The Japanese workers have yet to find survivors in the relief and rescue operations, after becoming the first foreign professionals to be given permission by China to work in the country.Apart from the time disadvantage-the team arrived after what is widely regarded as the critical 72 hours to find survivors-communication problems over the unprecedented operation were also believed to be slowing down the process.An example of such miscommunications took place shortly after the team's arrival, when the team was assigned to a rural site deeply buried in mud in the provinces' Qingchuan County.The Japanese professionals specialize in more of an urban environment, such as finding survivors in collapsed buildings, and subsequently they were switched to a site in the downtown area."There are times when there is a time-lag in (who gets what) information," Takashi Koizumi, a Foreign Ministry official who is the head of the team, told reporters.On Sunday, about two-thirds of the team worked at the junior high school, for a more thorough investigation into one of the compounds' two buildings which was badly damaged but not flattened like the other structures. An initial search into the area, carried out from late Saturday to early Sunday amid rain and minor aftershocks which caused parts of the edifice to break off and fall, showed no signs of life in the school of about 1,500 students.Of those who were at the school at the time of the temblor, about 70 either escaped or were helped out later by firefighters, Koizumi said. He added that some of the workers had seen bodies during their work from Saturday.A smaller team of rescue workers and sniffer dogs looked for survivors in downtown Qushan, after the team's request for a search using the dogs and equipment in order to find signs of life was granted by the Chinese authorities, Koizumi said.China, which initially had refused any offers of foreign rescue workers, said Thursday it was allowing the Japanese team to operate in the country. It said Friday that it was also accepting teams from Singapore, South Korea and Russia.The Japanese team includes firefighters, Japan Coast Guard personnel and Foreign Ministry officials.
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As in the days of Noah....