Search-and-rescue operations completed at derailment site
December 29, 2005Police on Thursday completed search-and-rescue operations at the site of the fatal accident involving an East Japan Railway Co. express train in Shonai, Yamagata Prefecture, judging that no passengers remain in the derailed train cars or are buried under the debris. They had been searching for a woman and a girl as some survivors said they had spotted them together in the front car, but a 41-year-old woman told them in the morning that she and her 6-year-old daughter had got off the train at the station before it derailed. She said she notified them because she was worried they may be searching for them.