Man rescued from rubble eight days after Japan quake

Minamisoma, Fukushima, JAPAN : This handout picture released by Watanabe Hospital on March 17, 2011 shows doctors and nurses, including Japanese Self-Defence Force medical unit members, transferring patients from Watanabe hospital in Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture, where the crippled nuclear plant sits, to other hospitals outside the nuclear-affected zone. Japanese engineers fighting to cool overheating reactors laid a power line into a stricken nuclear power plant on March 19 as hundreds of thousands of quake-tsunami survivors endured desperate conditions in the frozen north. AFP PHOTO / WATANABE HOSPITAL via JIJI PRESS

March 19, 2011
OSAKA, Japan (AFP) - Rescuers pulled a man from the rubble of a destroyed building in northeast Japan on Saturday, eight days after a massive earthquake and tsunami, a Self Defence Forces spokesman said.

Troops "recovered a young man from a half-destroyed house in Kesennuma city (Miyagi prefecture). He has no visible injuries but he was in such shock that he was unable to speak," said spokesman Hiroyuki Nakayama.

He was later transported to a nearby hospital, Nakayama added. The man was identified as Katsuharu Moriya, aged in his 20s, Kyodo News agency reported, quoting another SDF official.

A 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11 triggered a giant tsunami that flattened Japan's northeast coast and killed 7,197, according to the latest police death toll, with almost 11,000 officially listed as missing.