抖阴ap

NATORI, Japan — Line after line, a list on the wall of city hall reveals the dead. Some are named. Others are identified only by a short description.

Female. About 50. Peanuts in left chest pocket. Large mole. Seiko watch. Male. 70-80 years old. Wearing an apron that says “Rentacom.”

One set catches the eye of Hideki Kano, a man who appears to be in his 30s.

“I think that’s my mom!” he says. He rushes out into the snow, headed for a makeshift morgue.

The list in Natori, and others along Japan’s northeast coast, will only get longer.

Five days after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, the official death toll is more than 4,300. More than 8,000 people are still missing, and hundreds of national and international rescue teams are looking for them.

In the industrial town of Kamaishi, 70 British firefighters in bright orange uniforms clamber over piles of upturned cars to search a narrow row of pulverized homes. They wear personal radiation detectors amid fears of leaks from damaged nuclear plants far to the south.

One woman’s body is found wedged beneath a refrigerator in a two-story home pushed onto its side.

“Today and tomorrow, there is still hope that we will find survivors,” says Pete Stevenson, head of the British rescue crews.

Those seeking loved ones have posted hopeful notes in temporary shelters and other public places. They cover the front windows of Natori City Hall, blocking the view inside: “I’m looking for an old man, 75 years old, please call if you find him.” “Kento Shibayama is in the health center in front of the public gym.” “To Miyuki Nakayama: Everyone in your family is OK! We can’t use our mobile phones, so you can’t call us, but we’re all here. If you can come home, please come! We’re praying for you.”

City officials have posted a list of 5,000 people staying at shelters. Yu Sato, 28, snapped photos of the names.

“I’ll post them on the Internet so people living far away can check,” he says.

In Otsuchi town, Reiko Miura conducts her own search.

She’s looking for a 50-year-old nephew who couldn’t flee the tsunami because of a work injury that had physically disabled him. His mother — Miura’s sister — asked her to look for her son.

But for the 68-year-old woman, it’s a struggle just to recognize the neighborhood, now a sea of mud punctuated by tossed cars and mounds of debris.

“I’m pretty sure that my family home is here. It was a big house,” she says upon reaching a pile of rubble in a location that feels familiar. But there’s no sign of her nephew, and she trudges back across the mud, unsure what to tell her sister.