This aerial picture taken on September 28, 2014 shows a helicopter of Japan’s Self Defence Force lifting a survivor from the volcanic ash covered top of Mount Ontake, one day after it erupted/AFP
More than 1,100 firefighters, police and troops returned to Mount Ontake in a bid to reach those they had to abandon on Sunday when soaring levels of poisonous gas made the operation too dangerous.
Smoke was still rising from the peak Monday, but helicopters had begun a search of the volcano, a popular destination for walkers during autumn.
Aerial footage showed rescue workers climbing slopes blanketed with thick, grey ash.
At least 31 people were found near the summit of 3,067-metre (10,121-foot) volcano, which erupted Saturday without warning, spewing ash, rocks and steam. Emergency workers who reached them said they were not breathing and had no pulse.
Four of them were brought down and later confirmed dead by doctors. They were all men, aged 23-61.
Heartbreaking stories have begun to emerge from survivors who made it down the mountain as rolling clouds of volcanic debris swept down its flanks, smothering everything in their path.
“Some people were buried in ash up to their knees and the two in front of me seemed to be dead,” a woman hiker told the private Asahi network.
Another told how she had heard the last moments of a victim battered by a cascade of rocks.
“There was someone lying outside the hut after being hit in the back,” she said. “He was saying ‘It hurts, it hurts,’ but after about half an hour he went quiet.”
Seiichi Sakurai, who had been working at one of the huts around the top of the volcano, told public broadcaster NHK that he had tried his best to help people but could not save them all.
“Ash was constantly falling… Some people were buried alive but I could do nothing but tell (rescuers) about them over the radio,” he said.
Another survivor told the Yomiuri newspaper that he had seen a boy shouting “It’s hot” and “I can’t breathe!” near the peak, before the ash clouds turned everything black and silent.
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