Search goes on for thousands of missing tsunami victims

very sad, they should have an memorial constructed there.

How inconceivably sad and tragic for the lives lost, and for the ones left behind.

...and a salute to these people for their relentless efforts for a job in which the results are as depressing as the process of achieving them.

"If we don't do this, nobody will," Suzuki said.

What about government aid? Self Defense Forces?

Whiskeysour - Your heart is in the right place. They will not remember 3.11 like America honors the victims of 9.11.

The unfortunate truth is this. TEPCO and the Government will never spend any money on that. They can barely honor the living so you can't expect them to honor the victims of 3.11

Even today in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor they have the Arizona Memorial. Those victims were trapped in that ship after Japan's brutal vicious attack. America will honor them.

I believe there will be special services but unfortunately TEPCO is against acknowledging the events of 3.11 that they won't make any special efforts to forge a memorial site for the victims.

A Memorial would mean that the events of 3.11 would have to be documented in history forever. Right now TEPCO is trying it's best to keep it's name out of the history books. This is the express reason why there is no documentation from the meetings.

If a memorial site is constructed you could bet your lunch money that TEPCO will have an active role in deciding what is printed about the events of 3.11

Can't a Shinto priest finally pt them to rest with some prayers and rituals?

Readers, please stay on topic. TEPCO is not relevant to this particular discussion.

so mod - please remove Net Ninjas comment right now! Its disgraceful.

Moderator: We inserted a request at the end of it to instruct readers to stay on topic.

It's a sad and heavy duty to search for bodies, specially at sea. The currents may have carried the bodies hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away, or the bodies might just be stuck right below the ships patrolling every day.

As days pass by, it will become more difficult to identify bones recovered from the sea compared to bones under the soil.

A big salute to the people who keep searching.

It just breaks my heart reading this. The immense sorrow these people feel and are probably going to feel the rest of their lives. I cannot imagine how I would ever cope if I lost a child. The part about the mother obtaining a license to drive a digger just brought tears to my eyes.

So many heroes out there like Kikuchi who despite the odds are still out there trying to bring a little peace back to these people. It's so heart wrenchingly sad.....

What about government aid? Self Defense Forces?

The Coast Guard is part of the SDF and is funded by the government .海上保安庁 =Japan Coast Guard.

This is a thankless job that needs to be continued but unfortunately the day will come when the searches will have to stop and the government will have to officially declare the missing as dead.

There will always be a glimmer of hope in some people's minds as long as the remains are not recovered and I wish them all peace, both to the living and deceased as well.

Compare this to the Iwo-to situation (formerly Iwo Jima), where the government have sent around 5~10 bureaucrats to supervise a team of 50 contractors, looking for remains of troops killed more than 60 years ago. They may find some bones in the dry sand, and some material that may help identify them.

Much harder in the sea, where after an initial period of 'floating', the bodies wil burst, decompose or be fed upon, and as the bones get saturated with water, sink to the bottom. However, if traumatised from the physical impact of the tsunami, and lost their integrity, they'll not even float.

As for diving, 'frogmen' in a decent dry suit can easily spend an hour in the water in winter at a shallow depth; I do!

Japan Coast Guard is under Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, not part of SDF.

A big salute to the people who keep searching. This is a thankless job that needs to be continued

I'm glad some people say nice things for them. I remember the end of year of 2011 when the police were searching on the shore of Fukushima prefecture, many posters here were saying, "It's only a show." "Wasting tax payers' money."

The corpses will have washed out to sea or eaten by fish.

I think so, too, but those families want any belongings back if possible and it's part of coast guard's job to keep searching under tons of debris.

Blair...thank you I stand corrected.

Like any coast guard I believed them to be a "self-defense-force" as their mission is responsible for the protection the coast-lines of Japan.

no problems, Yubaru,

Coast Guard is like a police at sea. They can arrest anybody doing illegal activities.

MSDF is not military by law, but they are basically the same as Navy. They are responsible for the protection from any military attacks by foreign countries.

When I married to a j-coast guard man, I didn't know the difference between the two, either :P

aww... kudos to you guys

I apologize for not knowing that Japan still has so much more to concern itself with and now the rest of the world needs to be reminded of it ! This is much,much worse a disaster than the " Sendong " natural disaster of Mindanao Island of the Philippines that I am so aware of.My heart goes out to those missing a loved one. Thank You

Many bodies have been carried by the currents to sink in deep waters...It's very tragic that so many lives were lost .

My heat aches, just reading about these Coast Guard members.....how horrible to be in a situation where a "good" day, is finding the body of a missing person.....

Still very heartbreaking to this day :( In a perfect world it would be fantastic to find all the missing bodies so families can finally put their loved ones to rest. But we don't and i feel there would only ever be a 1 or 2% chance of ever finding anymore bodies :( even then they would only be bones now

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the dissaster.

My wallet, oops heart goes out too, thinking how much time and effort this situation really needs.

Over 19,000 dead from one tsunami. Truly devastating.