Japanese Guys Found on the Disaster

MINAMI SOMA, Japan (AP) _ The farmhouse sits at the end of a mud-caked, one-lane road strewn with toppled trees, the decaying carcasses of dead pigs and large debris deposited by the March 11 tsunami.

Stranded alone inside the unheated, dark home is 75-year-old Kunio Shiga. He cannot walk very far and doesn't know what happened to his wife.

His neighbors have all left because the area is 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant -- just within the zone where authorities have told everyone to get out because of concerns about leaking radiation.

No rescuer ever came for him.

When a reporter and two photographers from The Associated Press arrived at Shiga's doorstep Friday, the scared and disoriented farmer said: ``You are the first people I have spoken to'' since the earthquake and tsunami.

``Do you have any food?'' he asked. ``I will pay you.''

Shiga gratefully accepted the one-liter bottle of water and sack of 15-20 energy bars given to him by the AP. With Shiga's permission, the AP notified local police of his situation.

On Saturday, a police official in charge of missing persons called the AP to say Shiga had been rescued and taken to a shelter.

The official, who did not give his name because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Shiga was expected to be fine.

Shiga had said Friday that he was running out of supplies and food. He was unable to cook his rice for lack of electricity and running water. His traditional, two-story house is intact, although it is a mess of fallen objects, including a toppled Buddhist shrine.

Temperatures at night in the region have been cold, but above freezing.

The Odaka neighborhood where he lives is a ghost town.

Neighboring fields are still inundated from the tsunami. The smell of the sea is everywhere. The only noise comes from pigs foraging for food.

Local police acknowledged they have not been able to check many neighborhoods because of radiation...