Rescue services are continuing to search tirelessly this Saturday through the rubble of the devastating earthquake that struck central Japan on New Year's Eve, leaving at least 110 dead and 510 injured. Winter weather conditions make operations difficult.
Some 210 people also remain missing, according to a new count by local authorities, but hopes of finding survivors are dwindling almost five days after the disaster.
The magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula on the afternoon of January 1 devastated this narrow strip of land about a hundred kilometers long that juts into the Sea of Japan, causing landslides and the collapse of buildings and roads.
The shock, which was felt as far as Tokyo, 300 km away, also triggered a tsunami: waves over a meter high hit the coasts in places, swept away houses and streets along the sea and threw boats inland.
In Suzu in the north of the peninsula, where an AFP team was filming the search on Friday, a rescue dog that was sniffing the rubble suddenly barked. His trainer Masayo Kikuchi explained that this was a signal of the discovery of a person or a corpse.
The rescuers' task was expected to be made more difficult by weather conditions this weekend, with rain and snow and temperatures near zero degrees expected.
Isolated villages
According to Ishikawa department, where the Noto Peninsula is located, more than 30,000 people sought refuge in around 350 evacuation centers on Saturday, often in precarious conditions, especially in the hardest-to-reach areas.
“I don't think we received any equipment or food in significant quantities,” Takushi Sakashita, 59, who lives in the village of Noto at the tip of the eponymous peninsula, told AFP.
He said he failed to collect food rations from a nearby animal shelter to distribute to the elderly population, aging population and young children in the area.
“We are doing our best to carry out rescue operations in remote villages […]. “But the reality is that their isolation has not been resolved as much as we would like,” Ishikawa Governor Hiroshi Hase admitted on Friday.
In this and two other departments further north, almost 25,000 households were still without electricity and more than 70,000 households without water on Saturday morning.
Avoid crowds of people on the streets
In order not to hinder relief operations and the delivery of food to refugees, local authorities have urged people outside the Noto Peninsula, which is usually a tourist destination, not to travel there for “unnecessary travel” or for urgent purposes.
They also asked those wanting to volunteer for the clearance work to wait until the end of the three-day weekend – this Monday is a public holiday in Japan – due to a lack of organization to welcome and guide them.
That earthquake, followed by hundreds of lower-intensity aftershocks, was described by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as “the worst disaster” of Reiwa, the Japanese era that began in 2019 with the accession of Japanese Emperor Naruhito.
Several countries, including the United States and France, have offered assistance to Japan, and many have expressed condolences, including China and North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong Un expressed his “deep sympathy” in a message addressed to Mr. Kishida to the KCNA -Agency.
Japan is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes.
The Japanese archipelago is haunted by the memory of the terrible 9.0 magnitude earthquake that was followed by a huge tsunami on its northeastern shores in March 2011, a disaster that left some 20,000 people dead or missing.
This disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.