Hope fading for quake survivors
THOUSANDS of Japanese rescuers yesterday battled rubble and blocked roads as hopes faded for dozens listed as missing three days after a devastating earthquake that killed at least 81.
Hundreds of people in more than a dozen communities remained cut off in Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan, devastated by the 7.6-magnitude quake on New Year’s Day.
Regional governor Hiroshi Hase told a disaster management meeting that as of 4pm, 72 hours after the quake, “the survival rate of those in need of rescue is said to drop precipitously.”
“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.
“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.
“The situation remains difficult, but we will continue to do our utmost to support the victims,” he pointed out.
The powerful main tremor, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, injured at least 330 people, local officials said. Authorities published a list yesterday of 79 people whose whereabouts were unknown.
With hundreds sleeping in emergency shelters, further scenes of destruction were seen in the coastal towns of Anamizu and Wajima, including burnt-out cars in a market area ravaged by fire.
Thousands of soldiers, firefighters and police officers from across Japan, assisted by sniffer dogs, combed through the rubble of collapsed houses and toppled commercial buildings for signs of life.
Military hovercraft delivered heavy construction equipment and vehicles to the devastated port city by sea.
Around 30,000 households were without power in Ishikawa on the Sea of Japan coast, and 95,000 homes there and in two neighboring regions had no water.
Access was blocked to small communities in the hardest-hit Noto Peninsula region — with 300 people desperately waiting for aid at a school in Ooya Town in the Suzu area.
“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.
(AFP)
The situation remains difficult, but we will continue to do our utmost to support the victims.
Fumio Kishida Japanese Prime Minister