Age not just a number for Japanese towns

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan - Michiko Yamada, 75, ran barefoot with her husband to the rooftop of a hospital in this coastal town in northeast Japan, barely outracing the super tsunami unleashed by Japan's strongest earthquake. They spent a cold night there before a helicopter plucked them to safety.

Their neighbor Hayato Murakami, 73, scampered up a hill not far from his home just as the onrushing waters of the gargantuan wave washed over where he had been standing.

Many elderly people are among the 25,600 dead or missing in Japan's double disaster, including at least 1,800 people in Rikuzentakata.