Hundreds of people in more than a dozen communities remained cut off in Ishikawa prefecture in central Japan, devastated by the 7.5-magnitude quake on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n
Regional governor Hiroshi Hase told a disaster management meeting that as of 4:00 pm (0700 GMT), 72 hours after the quake, “the survival rate of those in need of rescue is said to drop precipitously”.<\/p>\n
“This is the worst catastrophe” in the current Reiwa era in the Japanese calendar, which began in 2019 when the current emperor ascended the throne, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.<\/p>\n
“Access to this area was extremely difficult, partly due to the geographical constraints of the affected area being a peninsula, and partly due to the intermittent occurrence of major quakes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The situation remains difficult, but we will continue to do our utmost to support the victims.”<\/p>\n
The powerful main tremor, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, injured at least 330 people, local authorities said. Authorities published a list on Thursday of 79 people whose whereabouts were unknown.<\/p>\n
With hundreds sleeping in emergency shelters, further scenes of destruction were seen by AFP in the coastal towns of Anamizu and Wajima, including burnt-out cars in a market area ravaged by fire.<\/p>\n
Thousands of soldiers, firefighters and police officers from across Japan, assisted by sniffer dogs, combed through the rubble of collapsed wooden houses and toppled commercial buildings for signs of life.<\/p>\n
Yasuhiro Morita, working with a rescue unit in Wajima, said that his dog Elza was trained to bark when it finds a body.<\/p>\n
“But today, she just wandered off toward bystanders instead, which likely means there was nobody inside,” Morita told AFP.
\nNo power<\/p>\n
“This is where my grandma’s house used to be, but it’s all burned down,” said Shinichi Hirano, 47.<\/p>\n
“She passed away a while ago so her house has long been vacant, but still, this area is full of fond memories for me,” he said.<\/p>\n
Military hovercraft delivered heavy construction equipment and vehicles to the devastated port city by sea.<\/p>\n
Around 30,000 households were without electricity in Ishikawa on the Sea of Japan coast, and 95,000 homes there and in two neighbouring regions had no water.<\/p>\n
Access was blocked to small communities in the hardest-hit Noto Peninsula region — with 300 people desperately waiting for aid at a school in the town of Ooya in the Suzu area.<\/p>\n
“Even if I give my food to my children, it is not enough at all. I have eaten almost nothing for the past two days,” a woman in her 30s with three children in Suzu told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
\n‘Critical’ 72 hours<\/p>\n
In the city of Nanao, police managing traffic told drivers that one of the main roads leading to Wajima had been prioritised for emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n
“Either reconsider carrying on, or risk facing a huge traffic jam ahead,” an officer has heard warning drivers.<\/p>\n
At a nearby gas station, a long queue of cars was waiting outside for it to open as the clock ticked past 8 am.<\/p>\n
Although there were no fuel shortages at the station for now, workers there told AFP they were rationing nonetheless.<\/p>\n
Monday’s main shockwave triggered tsunami waves at least 1.2 metres (four feet) high in Wajima, and a series of smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Broadcaster NHK reported that one person was swept away by the tsunami in Noto’s Suzu area, with the coastguard investigating.<\/p>\n
Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year and most cause no damage, with strict building codes in place for more than four decades.<\/p>\n
Earthquakes have hit the Noto region with intensifying strength and frequency over the past five years.<\/p>\n
The country is haunted by a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.<\/p>\n
It also swamped the Fukushima atomic plant, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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