video transcript

A city reduced to rubble. Houses lay shattered and overturned, and battered cars are strewn about the altered landscape. Residents of Miyako city near the coast in eastern Japan return to their homes for the first time since the deadly earthquake and tsunami struck. Fifty-two year-old Mitsuka Kimisawa wasn't home when the earthquake hit, but she rushed home to bring her 17-year-old son to safety. The tsunami swept through town just as she reached her house. (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) 52-YEAR-OLD LOCAL RESIDENT, MITSUKO KIMISAWA, SAYING: "I thought 'this is it, it's over'. It felt like the ground was being swept out from under our feet. I thought the wave was going to take us all, with the house, and I was thinking 'how are we going to get out of here?' and I was just in total hysterics, grabbing onto my son's arm." Her son said he was shooting footage of the wave from the balcony as the wall of water approached, but quickly dashed inside as the wave crashed against the house. Their house was not washed away, and they spent the night trapped inside. Mitsuko said she's thankful to have made it out alive. (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) 52-YEAR-OLD LOCAL RESIDENT, MITSUKO KIMISAWA, SAYING: "The next day, when we opened the window some people walked by so we shouted out to them 'Hello! We can't get out!' I think they contacted the fire department and we were rescued with a ladder from the back, and made our way down through the house behind us." Thousands of others in the tsunami's path did not survive. Officials say at least 10,000 people were most likely killed in the world's fifth most powerful quake in the past century. Travis Brecher, Reuters