Disaster

Japan Launches Massive Search for Bodies

Troops, planes, boats, divers to join effort.

With 12,000 people still missing in Japan, the government is launching a massive search to recover bodies of those killed by the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Japan will send nearly 25,000 soldiers supported by boats, divers, helicopters, and planes into the disaster zone Monday to look for bodies. Agriculture officials will send a team of veterinarians into the evacuation zone surrounding the Fukushima nuclear plant to check on hundreds of thousands of abandoned cows, pigs, and chickens, many of which have likely died of neglect. Though some bodies have already turned to skeletons, defense ministry spokesman Ippo Maeyama says the search will continue “as long as families want us to look for their loved ones.”