According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), central Japan, more specifically Ishikawa Prefecture, was hit by 155 earthquakes between Monday and 4 p.m. (2 a.m. Monday morning Eastern Time) and 9 a.m. Tuesday (5 p.m. Monday afternoon Eastern Time).
Most of these earthquakes were recorded with magnitudes above 3.0. According to the agency, six new strong tremors were felt on Tuesday morning.
The earthquakes caused “many victims” and significant property damage, as well as building collapses and fires, said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday.
“We have to race against time” to save lives, he added.
Fires continued to rage Tuesday morning in Wajima, a small historic town known for its lacquerware crafts.
The firefighters were overwhelmed, an official from the Wajima rescue service told AFP on Tuesday. “We are dealing with multiple fires,” and the number of emergency calls and damage reports continues to rise, he said.
He added that a large, multi-story building owned by a local paint manufacturer collapsed.
Aerial footage showed the extent of the disaster with a major fire in Wajima and fishing boats sunk or grounded in Suzu, another port on the Noto Peninsula.
Nearly 32,700 households remained without power as of Tuesday morning Japan time, according to a local power company.
According to the National Fire and Natural Disaster Management Agency, tens of thousands of residents have had to be evacuated since Monday, quoted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo.
A thousand soldiers from the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSF), as well as more than 2,000 firefighters and around 630 police officers, have arrived in the disaster areas as reinforcements, Mr Kishida added.
The Prime Minister on Monday also announced the shipment of essential goods such as drinking water, food, blankets, gasoline and even heating oil by plane or boat.
For his part, American President Joe Biden declared that the United States “stands ready to provide any necessary assistance to the Japanese people,” recalling that Washington and Tokyo are “close allies.”
“Solidarity with Japan, which must overcome the consequences of strong earthquakes.” “We share the great pain of the families of the victims,” responded French President Emmanuel Macron on X (ex-Twitter), adding that France was also ready to help .
“This is the Matsunami district of Noto. We are in a terrible situation. Please come and help us. My city is in a terrible situation,” one person implored in a video posted on X on Monday showing old wooden houses collapsing.
Other images on Japanese television on Monday showed evacuees waiting outside in the cold, some covering themselves with thick blankets and others holding children.
In light of the disaster, the traditional public New Year's greetings of Japanese Emperor Naruhito and his family, which were scheduled to take place in Tokyo on Tuesday, were canceled.
Several highways near the epicenters were closed to traffic and bullet train (Shinkansen) service between Tokyo and Ishikawa was suspended on Monday.
Japan is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes in the world.
Therefore, extremely strict building standards apply in the archipelago, so that modern buildings can usually withstand strong earthquakes, but older houses are significantly less so.
But Japan is haunted by the memory of the terrible 9.0 magnitude earthquake that was followed by a huge tsunami on the country's northeast coast in March 2011, a disaster that left about 20,000 people dead and missing.
This disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
“No anomaly” has been detected in the country’s nuclear power plants, the Japanese Nuclear Safety Agency (NRA) assured on Monday.