Four Trains Missing in Japan

There was word yesterday that one of the bullet trains was missing after earthquake and tsunami, but today that number has jumped to four:

The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

I'm guessing that when the earthquake hit the trains automatically shut down as they are designed to do. Unfortunately, that made them sitting ducks for the tsunami that followed shortly after the quake.

You'd think something as big as a train would be easy to spot in the affected areas, but the fact they haven't been able to find them yet tells you how devastated the areas are that were hit by the tsunami.

As bad as the losses on the train may be, there's an entire town that may have lost half of its population:

About 9,500 people are unaccounted for in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture following Friday's powerful earthquake, prefectural officials said Saturday.

The figure is more than half of the population of about 17,000 in the town on the Pacific coast, they said.

This is going to be a long recovery.