Four days after a deadly earthquake, Japanese rescuers, hindered by terrible weather and damaged roads, searched for 222 people who remained missing on Friday, as the death toll topped 100.
The 7.5 magnitude earthquake on New Year’s Day left two elderly women retrieved from the wreckage on Thursday, but with rain, snow, and dropping temperatures predicted in the next few days, there were dwindling prospects of finding more survivors.
In the central Ishikawa region, thousands of rescuers from all over Japan have been fighting their way through earthquakes and roads pocked with huge holes and frequently blocked by landslides to reach hundreds of people in isolated towns.
The two elderly women were rescued from the rubble of their Wajima homes on Thursday afternoon, 72 hours after the earthquake; one of them was saved by a sniffing dog.
One of the worst-hit cities was the port city of Wajima on the Noto Peninsula, where there was still a strong soot stench and faint smoke columns visible from a massive fire that had destroyed hundreds of buildings on the first day.
“I was relaxing on New Year’s Day when the quake happened. My relatives were all there and we were having fun,” Hiroyuki Hamatani, 53, told AFP amid the burnt-out cars, wrecked buildings and fallen telegraph poles.
“The house itself is standing but it’s far from livable now… I don’t have the space in my mind to think about the future,” he told AFP.
Grief
Authorities reported on Friday afternoon that, of the 242 persons who had been tallied earlier, 121 were in Wajima and 82 in Suzu, leaving 222 unaccounted for.
There were 464 injuries and 94 deaths, up from the previous count of 92. A junior high school student visiting his family was among the deceased, according to sources.
In the Ishikawa region, about 30,000 families lacked electricity, while 89,800 dwellings in that region and two nearby districts were without water.
Hundreds of people were in government shelters.
“We are doing our best to conduct rescue operations at the isolated villages… However, the reality is that the isolation has not been resolved to the extent that we would like,” regional governor Hiroshi Hase said Friday.
In the town of Anamizu, Sang and his four fellow Vietnamese compatriots have no heating or water in their damaged house. The toilet was full of bricks.
“We were cooking when it happened. We all dashed out of the house,” the 32-year-old told AFP.
“We had no internet connection on the day of the earthquake, but it resumed yesterday. We were able to contact family in Vietnam,” he said.
“What we need now is something to eat and drink.”
The Suzu area was also devastated, with fishing boats sunk or lifted like toys onto the shore by tsunami waves that also reportedly swept one person away.
Noriaki Yachi, 79, fought back tears after his wife was pulled from the rubble there and confirmed dead, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.
“My life with her was a happy one,” Yachi said.
Japan has had stringent building rules in place for more than 40 years, yet despite the hundreds of earthquakes that occur there each year, the majority do not cause any damage.
Over the last five years, the Noto region has experienced an increasing number and intensity of earthquakes.
The nation is still scarred by the devastating 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake that struck in 2011, causing a tsunami that killed or left about 18,500 people missing.
In addition, it overflowed the Fukushima nuclear power plant, resulting in one of the deadliest nuclear accidents ever.