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Night is falling on the tsunami-swept coast of Sendai when the stillness of the dusk is pierced by the sound of a whistle – three quick-short blasts that ought to denote some kind of hope or life-saving urgency, but now announce only the discovery of yet another body.
The search teams are visibly weary after a long day combing the deluged aprons of Sendai's airport, but the summons of their colleague animates them one more time.
A tarpaulin is fetched; a canvas stretcher unfurled and, lastly, a polythene body-bag produced to heft the bloated remains away with what little dignity time and circumstance allows.
It is now four nights since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered the tsunami that swept through this town in northeast Japan, destroying its airport in a moment that was captured in a dramatic piece of video that was broadcast around the world.
All day on Monday the teams of masked workers in rubber boots and plastic over-trousers poked and prodded at the debris with wooden staves; divining for dead bodies buried in the tight-packed debris that has been glued together with stinking, sandy sludge.
It is desperate work sifting the wreckage. This latest find is in the car park of the airport's School of Aviation where mounds of bristling flotsam have collected, funnelled in by the flood that carried planes and basketballs, cars and styrofoam coffee cups with equal ease.
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