Post-quake Osaka on landslide alert

THE death toll in a powerful earthquake that hit Japan’s Osaka on Monday has risen to five, with some 370 injured, officials said yesterday, urging vigilance against landslides ahead of heavy rains.

The fifth fatality was a 66year-old man who was found dead yesterday under a number of books and CDs in his home, a local government spokeswoman said.

The other casualties were a 9-year-old girl who was killed when a wall collapsed at her school following the 5.3magnitude quake, along with two men and a woman, all in their 80’s, who were trapped under a wall or furniture.

“The government will keep up efforts to rescue people,” top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, though he added that there were no reports of missing people.

And he said officials would do “everything we can” to quickly restore gas and running water to homes cut off after the quake.

Japan’s meteorological agency, meanwhile, warned that heavy rains expected in Osaka yesterday and today could cause landslides in the region, with the quake potentially having loosened earth.

Suga also called for residents to be on alert, saying “landslide disasters are possible in the region that experienced strong tremors, even if rains are light.”

The agency said the region could see 50 millimeters of rain by today morning and up to 100mm in the 24 hours after that to tomorrow morning.