Japan still searching for the missing, 5 years after tsunami

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan -- The Japanese coast guard resumed underwater searches this week for some of the more than 2,500 people still missing from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeast coast.

Six divers entered Hirota Bay in near-freezing temperatures Thursday in a search that was resumed temporarily at the behest of surviving families in the city of Rikuzentakata.

As reconstruction of the disaster-hit region gains pace, stretches of the bay have been reclaimed for building sea walls.

Relatives fear the remains of their loved ones might be buried forever.

"Some people say to me, do you really want to latch onto this forever?" said 81-year old Chikara Yoshida, who lost his only son, a 43-year-old volunteer firefighter who was trying to help elderly residents escape.

"But for me, as I approach the end of my life, I want to bring him back in any way I can," he said. "It doesn't matter which piece of him comes back. Then I can end my days."

Yoshida and his daughter led a petition drive through Facebook earlier this year to resume underwater searches.

The response was overwhelming. In just three weeks, 28,140 signed from Japan and abroad.

The coast guard heard about the petition and asked families in Rikuzentakata what it could do.

They asked for searches in areas where divers have told them objects tend to accumulate, thinking these are where they might be fruitful.

The coast guard searched waters off Minamisanriku on Wednesday and plans to search another area off Rikuzentakata today. So far, it hasn't found any remains. Thursday's effort turned up only a bicycle.

Further searches are not planned.

Some families rented their own boat to watch the search and tossed flowers into the bay.

A total of 2,561 people remain missing, according to the National Police Agency, including more than 200 in Rikuzentakata.

Nearly 16,000 have been confirmed dead, bringing the presumed death toll to more than 18,000.

After the disaster, Yoshida heard his son Toshiyuki had gone to the municipal office immediately after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake to help carry the elderly to higher ground, one by one, before the tsunami came.

He rescued two people and disappeared when he went back for a third.