By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow: Russian rescuers intend to search a 100 sq km area around the disaster-struck Japanese city of Sendai by the end of Thursday, the head of the search team said.
Russia has sent a total of 165 rescuers to Japan. They have all been stationed in Sendai together with rescue teams from other countries.
“Rescuers are currently working near a fishing port and an airport in a 100 sq km area in the city of Ishinomaki, four km to the north of Sendai,” rescue worker Andrei Legoshin said. “Unfortunately, we have not yet found any survivors.”
The Russian rescuers said earlier Thursday they had pulled seven bodies out of the debris in the quake-ravaged area.
The Japanese authorities confirmed Wednesday that more than 13,000 people were killed or are missing as a result of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan Friday. The number of confirmed dead stands at more than 5,100.
The disaster knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Complex, raising fears of a nuclear meltdown as blasts were reported at several reactors.