A race against time began in Japan on Tuesday to find survivors after an earthquake that devastated the Noto peninsula in the center of the country on Monday, leaving 50 people dead, according to a preliminary count.
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“The total number of deaths has reached 48,” an official from Ishikawa department, which includes the Noto peninsula, told AFP on Tuesday. An earlier report reported 30 deaths.
“It was such a huge shock,” Tsugumasa Mihara, 73, told AFP as he queued with hundreds of other residents of Shika, a small town on the Noto Peninsula, to recover from drinking water at the town hall.
“What a terrible start to the year,” he added.
AFP
This earthquake struck at 4:10 p.m. (7:10 a.m. GMT) on Monday and was the strongest among more than 150 significant tremors felt by Tuesday morning, with a magnitude of 1,000, according to the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS). 7.5 7.6 according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
This earthquake, which was felt as far as Tokyo, 320 km as the crow flies from Noto, also caused significant material damage and on Monday there was a tsunami on the coasts of the Sea of Japan, which ultimately remained of low strength and caused waves of up to 1.2 m measured high.
The tsunami risk level, which initially triggered a rare maximum warning from the JMA, was then downgraded in the evening and then finally raised at 10 a.m. (1 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday.
The extent of the destruction became apparent at dawn on Tuesday: old houses and collapsed buildings everywhere, cracked roads, capsized or grounded fishing boats and ongoing fires amid smoking ruins.
The earthquake and its numerous aftershocks caused “numerous victims” and significant property damage, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday. “We have to race against time” to save lives, he added.
A major fire particularly devastated part of the city center of Wajima, a small historic port in the north of the Noto Peninsula known for its artisanal lacquer products. A six-story commercial building also collapsed due to the earthquake.
“Hold on! Hold on!” firefighters shouted as they crawled and crawled their way through the rubble, according to Japanese television images filmed in Wajima.
About 32,000 households remained without power as of Tuesday afternoon and many towns in Ishikawa department no longer have access to drinking water as winter brings cold and humidity to this rural region.
According to the National Fire and Natural Disaster Management Agency, more than 60,000 residents had received evacuation orders as of Monday.
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 said on Tuesday.
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.
Imperial New Year greetings canceled
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 damaged highways were closed to traffic and bullet train (Shinkansen) service between Tokyo and Ishikawa, suspended since Monday, resumed on Tuesday afternoon.
However, around 2,400 passengers were stuck on Shinkansen or other stopped trains overnight, some for nearly 24 hours, according to NHK. Around 500 people were also stranded at Noto Airport, whose runway and access roads were damaged.
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.
Japan is haunted by the memory of the terrible magnitude 9 earthquake that struck the country's northeast coast in March 2011, followed by a huge tsunami 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.
Several friendly countries of Japan, including the United States, Canada, France and Italy, have offered to help Tokyo if needed. China also expressed its condolences on Tuesday.