Over 90% of March 11 quake victims died from drowning+

TOKYO, April 19 Kyodo -
More than 90 percent of the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster victims in the most severely hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima died from drowning, while over 65 percent of them were aged 60 or older, the National Police Agency said Tuesday.
Those in their 70s comprised the largest share of the victim total at 24.0 percent, it said. The tally illustrates that many elderly died for failing to escape the disaster on time and being trapped by the tsunami.
As of April 11, out of 13,135 quake victims in the three prefectures on whom the police have completed autopsies, 12,143 or 92.5 percent died from drowning, it said.
Of the remainder, 148 or 1.1 percent died of burns and 578 or 4.4 percent either crushed to death or died from injuries, while the causes of deaths for 266 or 2 percent could not be identified, the agency said.
The percentage of deaths by drowning was the highest in Miyagi at 95.7 percent, followed by 87.3 percent in Iwate and 87 percent in Fukushima.
The agency believes that deaths by drowning as well as the large majority of crush and injury deaths were the result of the massive tsunami, highlighting the difference between the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, in which over 80 percent of the victims died in collapsed houses.
Among 11,108 victims whose ages were identified, those aged 60 or older accounted for 65.2 percent. Those in their 60s stood at 2,124, or 19.1 percent, while those in their 70s were 2,663, or 24.0 percent, and 2,454 or 22.1 percent were aged 80 or older.
Victims aged 9 or under, those in their teens and in their 20s accounted for less than 4 percent each, it said.
According to the agency, the ratio of the dead aged 60 or older to the total victims exceeds by far the ratios of residents in the age group in many municipalities located along the coastlines.
The ratio of residents above aged 60 as of October last year was 42.5 percent in Rikuzentakata in Iwate, and 38.6 percent in Kesennuma in Miyagi as of March 2010.