SUZU, Japan - The number of people unaccounted for after the New Year’s Day earthquake in Japan more than tripled on Jan 8 to 323, while the death toll rose to 168, according to local authorities.
Meanwhile, a heavy dumping of snow complicated relief efforts a week after the 7.5-magnitude quake, with more than 2,000 people still cut off and many others lacking power or forced to take shelter in crowded emergency sites.
A new list published by Ishikawa prefecture in central Japan on Jan 8 showed that the number of missing people had soared from 31 to 281 in Wajima, one of the worst-hit places, where the quake flattened dozens of houses and a major fire devastated a large area.
In the prefecture’s Suzu city, a woman in her 90s survived for five days under the wreckage of a collapsed house before being saved on Jan 6.
“Hang in there!” rescuers were heard calling to the woman, in police footage of the rainy scene published by local media.
“You’re gonna be okay!” they shouted. “Stay positive!”
Not all were so lucky. Mr Naoyuki Teramoto, 52, was inconsolable after the bodies of three of his four children were discovered in the town of Anamizu.
“We were talking of plans to go to Izu”, a famous hot spring resort, after his daughter passed her high school entrance exam, he told broadcaster NTV.
Days of rain have increased the risk of further landslides, while fresh heavy snow – more than 10cm in some places – could cause more buildings to collapse under its weight, the regional government warned.
Around 18,000 households in the Ishikawa region remained without electricity on Jan 8, while more than 66,100 households were without water on Jan 7.
For the 28,800 people packed into government shelters, many were also without sufficient water, electricity and heating, according to media reports.
Ishikawa governor Hiroshi Hase told broadcaster NHK: “Disaster-related deaths must be prevented at all costs. I want to improve the poor environment in shelters.”
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told NHK on Jan 7: “The first priority has been to rescue people under the rubble, and to reach isolated communities.”
The government has “deployed various police and fire department helicopters” as well as small groups of troops on foot to reach the isolated communities, he said.
Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year, though most cause no damage because of strict building codes in place for more than four decades.
But many structures are older, especially in rapidly ageing communities in rural areas like Noto.
The country is still haunted by the monster quake of 2011 that triggered a tsunami, left around 18,500 people dead or missing, and caused a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima plant. AFP
