SOMA, Japan -- Japanese rescuers have found a 70-year-old woman alive four days after the disaster struck.

Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani says the woman was found inside her house that was washed away by the tsunami in northeastern Japan's Iwate prefecture. The rescuers from Osaka, in western Japan, were sent to the area for disaster relief.

Kotani said the woman was conscious but suffering from hypothermia and is being treated at a hospital. She would not give the woman's name.

Her rescue was a rare bit of news for Japanese traumatized by the disaster.