TOKYO (AFP) - Rescuers found two young children who spent nearly four days in a car buried under rocks and mud from Japan's killer earthquake, but their mother who was trapped with them died, officials said.
In a saga broadcast live on Japanese television, rescuers with shovels pulled Takako Minagawa, 39, and her two-year-old son from the rocks of a landslide in Nagaoka, one of the cities worst hit by Saturday's quake.
The boy, Yuta, was conscious and heard muttering "Mama" to attendants at Nagaoka Red Cross Hospital but his mother had died, hospital director Kenzo Kaneko said.
"The death of Mrs. Takako Minagawa was confirmed as she arrived at the hospital," Kaneko told a press conference.
The other child, a three-year-old girl called Mayu, remained trapped inside the car as rescue workers briefly suspended work at nightfall before deciding to continue, a spokesman for the prefecture said.
The car was found late Tuesday but rescue work had to wait until daylight on Wednesday while fresh aftershocks continued.
Specially trained rescuers sent from Tokyo's fire department located the three inside the car by using fibrescopes and other instruments. Kazuhiro Noguchi, a local government spokesman, said earlier that "either the mother or the girl needs to receive life-saving operations".
The car was buried by a landslide during the initial quake of 6.8 on the Richter scale Saturday.
With the mother's death, at least 32 people have died since Saturday's initial tremor, some from stress amid the hundreds of aftershocks.
10/27/2004 - 11:23 GMT - AFP