Anxious wait for relatives in Japan

Volunteers are trying to find out who has survived

Anxious relatives in Japan are awaiting news of the fate of nine people missing after a collision between a US submarine and a fisheries research vessel near Hawaii.

The Ehime Maru sank immediately after being struck by the surfacing USS Greeneville.

It must be so difficult for the families just to wait with no information

Uwajima municipal official Masanori Mori

Twenty-six people, including four 17-year-old students and two teachers from the Uwajima Fisheries High School in southwest Japan, have been rescued.

Officials at the school say they have little information about who is alive and who is missing.

Shock

School principal Kazumi Joko said at first, all they knew was what they saw in news reports.

Families have had to rely on television pictures to identify relatives

"We identified some of the survivors when we saw them on the television," he said.

Volunteers in the town of Uwajima are manning the phones, trying to find out more.

Municipal official Masanori Mori described the situation as chaotic. "There's a great deal of shock," he said.

"When I think of the families it must be so difficult just to wait with no information."

The fisheries school has about 200 students.

Prayers

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed government agencies to their utmost help save the lives of the missing.

He said the US had apologised for the incident.

"I pray the missing are found as soon as possible," he said.