Sussex firefighters heading home from their rescue mission in Japan said they had never seen such concentrated destruction before.

The experienced team of six from West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service’s technical rescue unit are due to land in the UK today after spending almost a week in the disaster-hit country.

St John Stanley and Mick Lewin, from Billingshurst, Chris Kemp, from Horsham, Joe Sacco and Brian Vincent, from Worthing, and Peter Thorpe-Hincks, from Steyning, worked in 12-hour shifts searching for survivors of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.

They flew to the Japanese coastal town of Ofunato last weekend to help the thousands of people left trapped or missing.

Speaking to The Argus yesterday from Japan, firefighter Mr Stanley said the group had been left “shocked” by what they had seen.

He said: “It was effectively massive and total destruction.

“I have not seen anything like this before. The houses were literally missing. Basically you would find a huge pile of wood that could be 20 houses.

“Whole towns and mini-cities were completely devastated.”