The naked body of an English language teacher who gave private lessons at the home of a Japanese student has been found buried in a bathtub filled with sand.

Lindsay Ann Hawker’s body was discovered on Monday night after detectives spotted part of her hand poking out of the bathtub on the balcony of a flat in a Tokyo suburb. She had suffered severe injuries to her face and arms and police found her handbag, identification documents and clothing strewn across the flat.

Detectives were hunting the resident, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28, who fled barefoot when officers visited his flat on Monday night.

They said that the bathtub – 120cm (4ft 2in) long, 70cm wide and 50cm deep – appeared to have been removed from the bathroom and filled with sand that was probably used for gardening.

Superintendent Yoshihiro Sugita, of the Chiba Prefectural Police said: “There was no sign of strangulation, and no sign that the body had been stabbed, but there were signs of violent assault – bruises on the face and in numerous places all over the body.

“We have found no traces of blood and there was no sign of a physical struggle. The victim was completely naked and her clothes were around the apartment, although we don’t know whether they were taken off by her or by the suspect.”

The family of Miss Hawker, 22, and her English boyfriend left anguished messages for her to contact them over the weekend, not realising that she was probably already dead. The messages were left on the Facebook social neworking website which she had used to record her time in Japan.

In one, her elder sister, Lisa, wrote: “Mum has heard about an earthquake in Japan (I’ve told her that Japan is the most common place in the world to experience such phenomena) . . . she is vv worried that you might have been injured. . . can you call or something? It’s not good fun living with the worried one xxx.”

In another her boyfriend, Ryan Garside, 21, from Durham, wrote: “Get in touch you fool!. . . Where is your moral support??”

Miss Hawker’s murder has raised fears for the safety of hundreds of other British women who move to Japan each year to teach English as a foreign language. Expatriates last night compared her murder with the death of Lucie Blackman, a 21-year-old former British Airways flight attendant who disappeared in Tokyo in 2000.

Miss Hawker, from Brandon near Coventry, arrived in Japan in October last year after graduating with a degree in biology from the University of Leeds.

She had been recruited by the Nova language school, which runs classes in English conversation at 800 locations across Japan. It is believed that she may have broken the school’s strict rules against giving independent tuition and had taken on Mr Ichihashi as a lucrative private student.

Mr Ichihashi had lived in the apartment since the age of 4 with his parent, both doctors, until they moved back to their home in Gifu, central Japan, a few years ago.

Police said yesterday that they were investigating the relationship between Miss Hawker and her suspected killer, but information from her flatmates suggested that they did not know one another well and were only recent acquaintances. Miss Hawker was last seen on Saturday night and was reported missing on Monday afternoon by a flatmate after she failed to answer her telephone.

Police discovered Mr Ichihashi’s name and contact details on a memo at her flat in the city of Funabashi which she shared with an Australian and Canadian girl.

Miss Hawker’s father, William, a driving instructor, and Mr Garside, a fellow Leeds graduate, flew to Japan yesterday to identify her body. Mr Garside had visited Miss Hawker Japan last month.

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