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Worry lines crinkle Masayuki Yamaki’s face as he surveys the destruction left by Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami. There’s not so much as a single landmark left in this-once scenic Japanese coastal village. Yet after five weeks of searching through the rubble in Myagi prefecture, this fireman knows the area like the back of his hand.

Yamaki points out orange rubble where a business once stood. The owners couldn’t escape the waves and are now part of the debris, Yamaki tells International Mission Board missionary Tony Woods, a long-time friend and Yamaki’s former pastor. The fireman turns and points to the only building still standing on its proper foundation, which used to have a nursing home standing next to it.

“In the hour between the earthquake and the tsunami, we tried to get them … we rescued a few, but many died there,” Yamaki says with a heavy heart. “Those first three days, we held out hope for survivors. That’s what drove us. By the fourth day, well, we knew ….”

Yamaki stops midsentence, allowing Woods to fill in the blank. The pair have found what they have been looking for — Yamaki’s crew of firemen, cutting away debris wrapped around a car. Their yellow and orange attire contrasts starkly with the drab mud-sludge that coats everything in the disaster zone.

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Yamaki slowly picks his way through the slippery, black mud toward the firefighters, deliberately trying to stay off the debris. It would be easier and faster to walk on the piles, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. He explains the debris piles are where the people are — the ones Yamaki and his crew search for each day, those who didn’t escape the dark wall of crushing water and are now known only as “the missing.”

The Missing

Their faces and names line the walls of evacuation centers and are plastered on phone booths and anything else left standing in the disaster zone. Local superstitions keep anyone from saying the names aloud. That’s just affirming the obvious — that the more than 14,589 still missing are, in fact, dead.

For this Baptist lay leader and the 22,000 other troops combing through the wreckage, finding and identifying the missing is a high priority. Yamaki explains that the Japanese place a particular value on a deceased person’s physical remains.

“That’s why by the fourth day, our focus was not for the sake of the victims but for the sake of the ones waiting and hoping to find someone they could grieve over,” Yamaki says. “We continue the search for those still living, so they can grieve the dead.

“When a person dies and we don’t recover the body, it’s a tragedy many in Japan may never recover from,” Yamaki adds. “They don’t have that physical presence to grieve over, to prepare (for cremation) or to say goodbye.”

Yamaki explains that while Christians, like him, believe the spirit and “real person” has gone on to be with the Father, Buddhists believe the body carries the spirit. This makes the recovery of bodies all the more important.

Yamaki stops walking and spreads his arms, saying that, in this area alone, disaster response workers estimate at least 1,000 people are still missing.

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His crew continues working on the car off in the distance. Many of the missing tried escaping the oncoming wave by hopping in their vehicles.  Yamaki tells his friend there are still hundreds of cars, most likely with bodies, under the rubble.

“If you see a big mound of debris, you know there will be bodies,” he says pointing to a pile the size of a small cruise ship.

He tentatively jabs his walking stick through an opening in the debris. The fireman explains the stick helps you know if there is a body buried.

“When you touch something organic, there is a different feel — soft and cushiony,” Yamaki explains. “I always pray it will be a futon mattress. When it isn’t ….”

Yamaki briefly tears up, but regains his composure quickly, reinforcing the emotional wall he has had in place for the past month. Woods places a reassuring hand on his old friend’s shoulder. They have been through many a crisis together — both buried sons in their church’s cemetery — but nothing on the scale of this disaster.

Yamaki nods that he is OK and explains that this search is personal for most of his crew. They grew up in this area. They are finding the bodies of people they know — fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, neighbors and friends.

Pray for Us

After five weeks, the job has gotten harder. Decomposition makes it difficult to identify remains. Dental and medical records that might help were washed away in the tsunami.

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Finding a decaying corpse is a difficult experience, even for seasoned rescue workers, Yamaki says. “It’s really, really awful,” he tells Woods. “We are professionals and trained to do this, but we are humans first.

“We hear words of support from all over the world,” the fireman confides in his friend. “What I want to hear the most is for people to say that they are praying for us.  I know that prayer can be the most effective and powerful tool of all.

“I just want to hear that people are praying for us,” he repeats adamantly. “We are down. We are sad and grieving.”

Nighttime is the hardest for Yamaki and his crew — that’s when they are alone and the feelings finally come to the surface, when the enormous task they’ve been asked to do seems impossible.

No one verbalizes it, but they know everyone will not be found. Few can forget the view from a helicopter on the day of the earthquake. At least 500 bodies could be seen floating in the water. The next day, the bodies were gone, washed out to sea.

Yamaki isn’t even sure the estimated number of missing is correct. If entire families were washed away, who’s left to report their disappearance?

The fireman shakes his head and admits there’s no way to really grasp the magnitude of this disaster and its lasting effects on his country. All he knows is that despite his best efforts, no one but God will ever know the true number or say the names of “the missing.”