Two survivors found nine days after Japan quake: NHK

An 80-year-old woman and 16-year-old youth were found alive on Sunday under the rubble of the Japanese city of Ishinomaki, nine days after the country's northeast was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami, NHK public TV said.

NHK quoted police in Miyagi prefecture as saying the two had responded to shouts from a police rescue team. They were weak but conscious.

On Saturday, Kyodo news agency and the military reported the "miracle rescue" of a young man pulled from the rubble of his home, only to find out that he had been in an evacuation centre beforehand and just returned to his home.

An official at Ishinomaki's Red Cross hospital said the two had been carried into the hospital and were getting treatment.

"I only had a glimpse of the elderly woman, who had her eyes closed," the official said. "She didn't appear to be dead," the official said when asked if she was conscious.

The official could not say if the other survivor was a boy or a girl, saying the youth's face had been obscured by a cap.

Ishinomaki police were not immediately available to confirm the report.