Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Saturday visited the tsunami-devastated town of Minamisanriku, becoming the first foreign leader to travel to Japan's disaster zone. -- PHOTO: AFP
MINAMISANRIKU - AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Saturday visited the tsunami-devastated town of Minamisanriku, becoming the first foreign leader to travel to Japan's disaster zone.
The town, which had a population of 17,600, was obliterated and more than 1,130 people killed or left missing when the massive wall of water triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake smashed through the northeastern resort on March 11.
It was initially feared that more than half the population had been killed, so complete was the devastation.
Town mayor Jin Sato briefed Ms Gillard and escorted her on a tour of the destruction, which left whole streets a tangled mass of splintered timber and twisted metal.
'It is miraculous that anyone survived such devastation,' Kyodo News quoted her as saying.
'It's been amazing to see the spirit of the people... even in such difficult, difficult circumstances.' Ms Gillard saw the ruins of the town's three-storey anti-disaster centre, which was reduced to its red frame. She also visited some of the thousands of survivors who are still living in emergency shelters and gave cuddly toy koala bears and kangaroos to the children.
-- AFP
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