Anamizu | AFP
More than 200 people were still missing this Friday (5) in the central region of Japan, where rescue teams continue their efforts to find survivors of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that caused nearly a hundred deaths and destruction in several cities on the day of the New Year .
Two elderly women were rescued this Thursday (4) from the rubble of their homes in Wajima, in the Noto Peninsula, one of the peninsulas most affected by the quake. But the hope of finding more survivors is dwindling after 72 hours, the chances of finding people alive drop significantly, according to experts.
The rain, which increases the likelihood of new landslides, and the severe cold with temperatures below zero make the search difficult. Meteorologists warn that snowfall could occur on Sunday (7).
The earthquake has already claimed 94 lives and 222 people are still missing, according to a bulletin released Friday by Ishikawa Prefecture, where the Noto Peninsula is located. The authorities had previously counted 242 missing people.
The earthquake occurred on Monday (1st) at 4:10 p.m. local time (4:10 a.m. in Brasília) and was felt in Tokyo, 300 kilometers from the epicenter. The quake shook the Noto Peninsula, a thin strip of land that extends about 100 kilometers into the sea. The phenomenon caused houses and buildings to collapse and caused destruction on the streets.
At least 460 people were injured in the earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks in the days that followed, according to Ishikawa authorities. In addition, a tsunami hit the coast with waves over a meter high, washing away the pier, houses and damaged roads along the coast.
Several hundred people whose homes were destroyed remain in emergency shelters. “We are doing everything we can to carry out rescue operations in the remote villages […]. “However, the reality is that the isolation problem has not been resolved as much as we would like,” Ishikawa Gov. Hiroshi Hase said Friday.
More than 26,000 households in Ishikawa remain without power. Another 90,000 in two neighboring regions are still without water. A sooty smell lingers in the port city of Wajima, where clouds of smoke still hang after a fire destroyed hundreds of buildings on the day of the earthquake.
“I was resting on New Year's Day when the earthquake happened. I was with my family and we had fun,” Hiroyuki Hamatani, 53, told AFP. “My house is still standing, but it is anything but livable. I can’t think about the future now,” he said.
The Suzu area at the tip of the peninsula was also devastated. Fishing boats sank or were swept away by the waves, with at least one person being swept away, authorities said.
Noriaki Yachi, 79, held back tears as his dead wife was recovered from the rubble. “My life with her was happy,” he told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
The earthquake, with its countless aftershocks, was described this Thursday (4) by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as the “worst disaster” of Reiwa, the era in Japanese history that began in 2019 with the accession to the throne of the Japanese Emperor Naruhito.
Japan lies in the socalled Pacific “Fire Belt” and is one of the countries in the world where earthquakes occur most frequently. Local building codes are strict, buildings tend to withstand strong vibrations, and the population is used to situations like this.
The last time a major tsunami hit Japan's coast was on March 11, 2011. That's when the island nation recorded a magnitude 9 quake, followed by a huge wave that killed nearly 20,000 people and devastated towns in the northeast of the country. and triggered nuclear fission in Fukushima the worst nuclear accident since the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Union in 1986.
According to local authorities, Monday's earthquake did not cause significant damage to Japan's nuclear power plants.