Two survivors of the Japan earthquake have been pulled alive from the rubble, four days after the 9.0 magnitude tremor.
A 70-year-old woman was found alive in her house in the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, public broadcaster NHK reported. She was suffering from hypothermia but was not in a life-threatening condition, it said, adding that she had been hospitalised.
A man, whose age was not given, was rescued in the town of Ishimaki in Miyagi prefecture, the network said.
Miyagi was particularly badly hit by the quake and the subsequent tsunami that swept away whole towns and villages. Emergency personnel were reported to have found 2,000 bodies in the prefecture on Monday.
Two survivors of the Japan earthquake have been pulled alive from the rubble, four days after the 9.0 magnitude tremor.
A 70-year-old woman was found alive in her house in the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, public broadcaster NHK reported. She was suffering from hypothermia but was not in a life-threatening condition, it said, adding that she had been hospitalised.
A man, whose age was not given, was rescued in the town of Ishimaki in Miyagi prefecture, the network said.
Miyagi was particularly badly hit by the quake and the subsequent tsunami that swept away whole towns and villages. Emergency personnel were reported to have found 2,000 bodies in the prefecture on Monday.
The rare rescues came just a day after a four-month-old girl was plucked - apparently uninjured - from the rubble of the town of Ishinomaki, also in Miyagi.
Emergency workers had rescued 15,000 people and about 550,000 had been evacuated to about 2,600 shelters across six prefectures by Monday, Kyodo News reported.
However, local officials are estimated to have lost contact with about 30,000 people.
Roads and rail, power and ports have been crippled across much of the northeast of Japan's Honshu island, hampering relief efforts.
The government has mobilised 100,000 soldiers to deliver food, water and fuel and around 70 countries have offered assistance.
"It is the elderly who have been hit the hardest," said Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross, in a memo written from Ishinomaki.
"The tsunami engulfed half the town and many lie shivering uncontrollably under blankets. They are suffering from hypothermia having been stranded in their homes without water or electricity."
The Japanese Red Cross has deployed about 90 medical teams who are trying to provide the basics in care for 430,000 in remote towns spread along the coast.