Several dozen people are still missing Thursday in central Japan after the powerful New Year’s earthquake which left 78 dead according to a provisional toll, with material damage complicating the task of rescuers. The 7.5 magnitude quake, felt as far away as Tokyo, 300 km away, shook the Noto peninsula in the Ishikawa department, a narrow strip of land that extends about a hundred kilometers into the sea. of Japan, collapsing buildings and devastating roads.
At least 330 people were injured by the earthquake and the hundreds of aftershocks that followed it, some of them very strong. A tsunami also hit the coast, with waves of more than a meter sweeping away many boats on docks or seaside roads. According to public broadcaster NHK, one person was swept away by the tsunami near Suzu , at the tip of the peninsula, and the coast guard was looking for him.
“The situation is very difficult”
Also according to NHK, a group of researchers estimated that the tsunami hit the town of Suzu less than a minute after the earthquake, leaving little time to evacuate the seaside. Nearly seventy-two hours have now passed. elapsed since the disaster, a window considered crucial for finding survivors. Authorities in Ishikawa released the names of 51 people still missing on Thursday morning.
“The situation is very difficult but… I ask you to make every effort to save as many lives as possible by this evening,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a government meeting on Thursday . While the Ishikawa department reports 78 deaths, the toll could rise further as hundreds of buildings were destroyed in the disaster, including a huge fire in the town of Wajima.
The rain made the search by several thousand members of the Self-Defense Forces, firefighters and police from across Japan even more difficult, and weather services warned of the risk of landslides.
Tens of thousands of homes without water or electricity
These conditions complicated the delivery of food and equipment to the victims, including 300 people taking refuge in a school in Suzu. The Self-Defense Forces had to use helicopters to reach the least accessible areas. Some 29,000 homes were still without electricity in Ishikawa, and more than 110,000 homes were without water in this department and two others. Early Thursday in the central peninsula town of Nanao, police were directing traffic, informing motorists that one of the main roads leading to the northern port of Wajima was given priority to emergency vehicles.
Not far away, a long line of cars waited for the opening of a gas station where gasoline was rationed to 16 liters per vehicle although there was no shortage for the moment, explained a employed at the AFP. “I think a lot of them are extremely cautious and just want to be prepared for any eventuality,” added the employee, who did not wish to give her name. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes in the world.
The Japanese archipelago is haunted by the memory of the terrible 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by a giant tsunami in March 2011 on its northeastern coasts, a disaster which left some 20,000 people dead or missing. This disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the most serious since that of Chernobyl in 1986. This time, the series of earthquakes caused only minor damage to the nuclear power plants installed along the coast, according to their operators. .