Authorities are assessing the damage on Saturday, the day after the powerful earthquake that killed one and injured 23 in central Japan and was followed by more than fifty aftershocks.
The 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Ishikawa Prefecture at 2:42 p.m. (0542 GMT), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). She initially estimated the magnitude at 6.3.
As of Saturday morning, at least 55 aftershocks have been recorded since the first quake, according to the same source, further warning of the risk of landslides in the area.
At least 23 people were injured, the national crisis team said in a statement on Saturday.
“Our workers are assessing the damage caused by the earthquake,” an official from the hardest-hit city of Suzu in Ishikawa Prefecture told AFP.
Two people trapped in a destroyed building were rescued, he added, and about fifty people were given emergency shelters at schools and town hall.
On Friday, Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told media the death toll was one, adding that several buildings had collapsed.
The victim died after falling from a ladder in Suzu on the Sea of Japan coast, according to a crisis management official in that city.
NHK footage showed destroyed or damaged wooden houses with broken windows and battered roofs. A sagging section of the mountain could also be seen.
landslides
The earthquake has in places reached level 6+ on the Japanese Shindo scale, which has 7.
For its part, the American Institute for Geological Studies USGS estimated the earthquake’s magnitude at 6.2 and localized it slightly offshore, while the Japanese agency placed the epicenter on the mainland.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, which lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an area of high seismic activity spanning Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin.
The archipelago has strict building standards to allow its buildings to withstand severe shaking. Emergency drills to prepare for a major earthquake are organized regularly.
Located on the Noto Peninsula, the city of Suzu was struck by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in 2007, injuring hundreds and damaging more than 200 buildings.
Japan is still haunted by the memory of the March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan’s northeast coast.
The terrible quake resulted in a tsunami that was the main cause of the high death toll with nearly 18,500 dead or missing.
The ensuing nuclear accident at the flooded Fukushima Daiichi plant, which melted the cores of three out of six reactors, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate and rendered entire communities uninhabitable for several years.