In the midst of all the devastation happening in Japan, there are good things going on that are not being reported.This story is one of many among the ruins.
Daily Mail reports the sound of a baby’s cry amid the rubble seemed so impossible that soldiers searching a tsunami-smashed village dismissed it as a mistake.
But it came again. And they realised they had not been hearing things.
They pulled away wood and slate, dug back thick oozing mud – and there was the child they were to describe as a ‘tiny miracle’.
The four-month-old girl had been swept from her parents’ arms in the shattered village of Ishinomaki when the deadly wave crashed into the family home.
For three days, the child’s frantic family had believed she was lost to them for ever.
But yesterday, for a brief moment, the horrors of the disaster were brightened by one helpless baby’s story of survival.
Soldiers from the Japanese Defence Force had been going from door to door pulling bodies from the devastated homes in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Sendai.
Most of the victims were elderly, unable to escape the destructive black tide.
But for this precious moment, at least, it was only the child who mattered to the team of civil defence troops who found her.
One of them picked her up in his arms, wrapped her in a blanket which had been handed to him and cradled the child as his colleagues crowded around, not believing that someone as young as this had survived when all hope had been lost.
The tiniest survivor was cold and wet and crying, but she is believed to have suffered no other injuries.
Why she did not drown remained a mystery.
But the soldiers were somehow able to trace her overjoyed father, who had been taking refuge in his wrecked home with the rest of his family.
Even then, the nightmare wasn’t over. For just minutes after the emotional reunion, the shell-shocked survivors were told that a second tsunami might be on its way.
The panicked father begged the soldiers to take the baby to safety on higher ground.
But the 11am alarm proved to be false and the reunited family returned to try and rebuild their home.
Amid the devastation, there have been precious few tales of survival.
More details here
God be praised!
