Rescuers in Japan are racing against time to find survivors of the New Year's quake as a critical three-day window is now closed.
At least 82 people were killed when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the remote Noto peninsula at 4:10 p.m. local time (07:10 GMT) on Monday.
Many people are believed to be trapped under their collapsed homes, especially in the cities of Suzu and Wajima.
After 72 hours, the probability of finding people alive drops significantly.
Tens of thousands of residents are still without power and water, while hundreds remain excluded from aid due to landslides and blocked roads.
Earlier on Thursday, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said 150 people had been rescued so far and that rescuers would continue extensive efforts to save as many as possible.
“This is a very difficult situation. But from the perspective of protecting lives, I ask you to make every effort to rescue and save as many lives as possible by this evening, when the critical 72 hours of the disaster will have passed,” he said.
According to the AFP news agency, at least 330 people were injured in Monday's quake, which was followed by a series of aftershocks.
More than 30,000 people in earthquake-hit areas are still in emergency shelters, and some towns lack water, electricity and internet connections.
Reports of dramatic rescue operations are now spreading virally on the Internet. A video released by Peace Winds Japan, a local NGO that helped with the rescue, shows several rescuers plowing through layers of collapsed furniture to rescue a woman trapped beneath her home. Then they wrapped a thick blanket around her.
Composite image showing the extensive damage to a street in Wajima, where commercial and residential properties were destroyed by fire
The BBC saw extensive destruction during a visit to Wajima on Wednesday, with some houses and vehicles smashed under crumbling concrete. . Many of the city's old, traditional wooden houses had collapsed.
Japan introduced new regulations to protect buildings from earthquakes in 1981, but many of the wooden houses were built before these regulations were introduced.
Some of the Wajima residents, many of them elderly, had not completed the work to upgrade their homes. Data from 2018 showed that more than half of the city's buildings did not meet the new standards.
With a population of about 23,000, Wajima now resembles a ghost town as most heeded early warnings to evacuate when tsunamis were predicted.
However, it still has the highest death toll, with 48 confirmed deaths – more than half of the total number of victims. That number is expected to rise as some areas around the city are still cut off by broken roads and landslides, leaving aid unable to reach people.
Wajima Mayor Shigeru Sakaguchi said food and other supplies had so far reached only 2,000 of 10,000 evacuees from the city.
According to the mayor of Suzu, a city of about 13,000 residents, almost no houses are left standing. About 90% have collapsed completely or almost completely, said Masuhiro Izumiya.
A minute after the severe quake, a small tsunami hit the city.
Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world and activity around Noto has been increasing since the end of 2020. There have been more than 500 small and medium-sized earthquakes here in the last three years.
