An elderly woman and her teenage grandson were rescued from the wreckage of a home in northeast Japan, nine days after a massive earthquake and tsunami, police said.
The story of survival provided welcome good news as the death toll from the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster continued to climb, with the number of confirmed dead and missing topping 21,000.
An 80-year-old woman, Sumi Abe, and her 16-year-old grandson Jin were rescued from debris and sent to hospital in the devastated coastal city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture, local police said.
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"Their temperatures were quite low but they were conscious," an Ishinomaki police spokesman told AFP.
They were in the kitchen when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's coast, Japanese media reported.
The house collapsed with them inside and was hit by tsunami waves, but the teenager was able to reach food from the refrigerator, helping the pair to survive for more than a week.
"We were trapped right after the quake. We survived by eating little by little," Jin told police, according to the public broadcaster NHK.
He fed his grandmother yoghurt, Coca-Cola and water and on Sunday managed to break through the ceiling and reach the roof.
"I got outside by myself and called for help," he was quoted as saying.
The boy was said to be shivering and with no feeling in one leg when he was rescued.
"I'm relieved," Sumi reportedly told rescuers. "I cannot walk because my legs are no good."
To protect themselves from the bitter cold that followed the disaster, the grandson took some futon blankets, which were miraculously not wet from the tsunami, and stayed close to his grandmother to keep warm, Jiji news agency said.
Doctors at the Ishinomaki Red Cross Hospital, where the survivors were treated, said Sumi "had no problem at all" while Jin's left leg was swollen possibly because of slight frostbite.
There have been few other miracle rescues.
Troops announced Saturday they had found a man thought to have survived for eight days in a half-destroyed house in the disaster zone, but it later turned out he was actually an evacuee who had simply returned to his home.
Freezing temperatures and snow have hampered rescue operations.
Miyagi prefecture was worst hit by the quake and tsunami, with a confirmed death toll of 5,053.
