Authorities found four more bodies on a still-smouldering Japanese volcano Saturday as they resumed a search stalled by heavy rain, but a typhoon threatened to further hamper the recovery operation. Local authorities said Friday that 16 people remained unaccounted for on Mount Ontake, which erupted a week ago. It was not immediately clear if the four bodies found Saturday were included in that figure. The bodies of 47 other victims have already been retrieved from the mountain, in Japan’s deadliest eruption for almost 90 years.
We are scheduled to restart the operation tomorrow morning as a number of people are still unaccounted for.
Nagano prefectural official
Rescue workers have spoken of up to half a metre of thick, sticky ash smothering the slopes, with some of the dead found half-buried, leading to fears others may be entombed. Some 930 troops, firefighters, police restarted their search Saturday morning after heavy rain had suspended their recovery operation on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile Typhoon Phanfone, located some 120 kilometres east of Minamidaito island, looked set to batter the country over the coming days with gusts of up to 252 kilometres per hour. Phanfone is moving northwest in the Pacific toward Japan’s southwest at a speed of 15 kilometres per hour.