A lifeboat is sent from a Japanese military vessel to rescue the man sat aboard the roof of his house

Amid the unremitting horror and devastation there came a rare story of survival.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa was found floating nearly ten miles out at sea on the roof of his house, two days after the quake struck.

As the wave approached his home city of Minamisoma on Friday, the 60-year-old and his wife took the fateful decision to return home to collect belongings.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa, 60, waves to rescuers before being hauled to safety today

Shinkawa told his rescuers that the tsunami hit as he and his wife returned home to gather some belongings after Friday's quake

Minutes later Mr Shinkawa was being dragged out to sea in swirling currents.

He was eventually spotted by a navy vessel searching for victims, clinging to the wreckage with one hand and waving a makeshift red flag with the other.

After being hauled on to the rescue boat, Mr Shinkawa burst into tears when he was told that his wife was still missing.

‘No helicopters or boats that came nearby noticed me,’ he said. ‘I thought that day was going to be the last day of my life.’

Others were not so lucky.

Harumi Watanabe told yesterday how she gripped her elderly parents’ hands as the tsunami crashed through the windows of their family home.

But her parents could not hold on and screamed ‘I can’t breathe’ before they were dragged under water.

Miss Watanabe, a shopkeeper, said she had driven home after warnings of the wave’s approach.

‘But there wasn’t time to save them. They were old and too weak to walk so I couldn’t get them in the car in time.’

‘I stood on the furniture, but the water came up to my neck,’ she said. ‘There was only a narrow band of air below the ceiling. I thought I would die.’

Many continued to hunt for their loved ones in the hope of a miracle.

‘I am looking for my parents and my older brother,’ Yuko Abe, 54, said in tears.

‘I also cannot tell my siblings who live away from here that I am safe, as mobile phones and telephones are not working.’

Survivors in the devastated areas suffered for a third day without water, electricity and proper food, as temperatures dropped toward freezing.

Hundreds of thousands of survivors huddled in darkened emergency centres cut off from rescuers, aid and power.

The Japanese government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000 and sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and food to affected areas.

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