Almost a month after Japan's tsunami, an AP reporter and photographer stumbled on 75-year-old Kunio Shiga, who has been stranded in his home since the wave hit. Shiga's house was cluttered but intact, and he told the reporters they were the first people he'd talked to since the disaster.
The journalists spotted the relatively undamaged house about 500 meters (yards) away. Unable to drive on the road because of the debris, they navigated the rest of the way on foot, sometimes crawling over large branches.
Shiga was seen wandering in front of his house but went inside. The journalists went to greet him.
He said he spent his lonely days since the disaster sitting in bed in his dark home and listening to a battery-powered radio. A scruffy beard covered his face."The tsunami came right up to my doorstep," he said. "I don't know what happened to my wife. She was here, but now she's gone."
His neighbors have left because Shiga lives within the evacuation zone around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. But Shiga seemed reluctant to leave. The reporters gave him energy bars and water, and left. They later contacted the police, who said they would check on him. "I'm old and I don't know if I could leave here. Who would take care of me?" he told the AP. "I don't want to go anywhere. But I don't have water and I'm running out of food." [AP, image via AP]
