Survivor pulled from Japan rubble after 8 days

[Ghost in the Machine]

By SHINO YUASA, Associated Press Shino Yuasa, Associated Press – 1 hr 22 mins ago
TOKYO – Military search teams pulled a young man from a crushed house Saturday, eight days after an earthquake and tsunami wrecked northeast Japan.

The young man, found in the rubble in Kesennuma city, was too weak to talk and was immediately transferred to a nearby hospital, said a military official. The official, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media, had no other details.

Kyodo, the Japanese news agency, said the man was in his 20s.

The rescue is the latest and one of the few after the March 11 disaster, as the power of the tsunami, triggered by the magnitude-9 earthquake, likely pulled many people out to sea.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110319/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_rescue

[defendandprotect]

1. kr

[suffragette]

2. Much respect to those rescue teams who keep trying

in such dire conditions and overwhelming odds against them.

K&R

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. Wow. That's amazing! I hope he's ok. It sounds like he will be. n/t

[karnac]

4. turns out to be false

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79523.html

[jannyk]

6. Yeah, that was a bummer :(

[Turborama]

9. Something didn't seem right about it when the news broke on TV. I had an instinctive feeling

that this could have been a manufactured "feel good" story or something but didn't want to say anything just in case it was true.

[AsahinaKimi]

5. self delete

-0-

[99th_Monkey]

7. Who knows what's really true.. just saw this "correction" on BBC/Japanese website

"Earlier reports of a survivor being pulled from the rubble eight days after the quake appear to be incorrect. Kyodo news agency has withdrawn its story, saying the young man in question had been in an evacuation centre but then returned to see his ruined home, where he was 'discovered' by rescue workers."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

[Beam Me Up]

8. well, actually, maybe not....

OKYO (Reuters) – It seemed too good to be true. A young man pulled alive from the rubble on Saturday eight days after Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami.
Hours after the man made international headlines on Saturday, a glimmer of hope in Japan's worst tragedy since World War Two, Japanese media offered a mea culpa, withdrew the story and dashed hopes of a "tsunami miracle."
The man, in fact, had been in an evacuation center and had just returned to his ruined home, where he lay down in a blanket, one of thousands of victims of Japan's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, but not quite a miracle.
"He had been staying in the shelter since the quake and tsunami hit the coastal city on March 11 and returned home in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, around noon Friday to clean it up," news agency Kyodo News reported.
Earlier, Japanese media and the military reported that the man, in his 20s, was in shock and unable to speak when he was found in Kesennuma, one of the regions hardest hit by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
The military also confirmed the man had earlier been to an evacuation center.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110319/wl_nm/us_japan_survivor_8