Number of earthquake victims in Japan rises to more than 60
At least 62 people have died as a result of the earthquake in Japan, hundreds are missing and tens of thousands of households are without electricity and water. The situation is devastating and rescue efforts are being hampered by rainfall. The authorities are also announcing further rainfall.
Two days after the severe earthquake in Japan, the death toll has risen to at least 62. At least 300 more people have been injured, 20 of them seriously, a person responsible for disaster control in the regional government of Ishikawa Prefecture told the AFP news agency. According to the authorities, 31,800 people are currently being housed in emergency shelters. Meanwhile, rescue workers continued to search for survivors - in conditions that are likely to be made even more difficult by heavy rainfall.
According to the authorities, heavy rain and possible landslides are expected throughout Ishikawa Prefecture this Wednesday. The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned of possible landslides until the evening hours. There were also repeated aftershocks.
The number of victims of the earthquake is likely to rise further. Ishikawa is a rural region and numerous roads were destroyed after the quake. According to the television station NHK, many more people could be buried.
The main Japanese island of Honshu was shaken by a severe 7.5-magnitude quake and dozens of aftershocks and tsunami waves on New Year's Day. Hundreds of houses on the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture collapsed or were damaged as a result of the earth tremors. Satellite images showed massive damage, particularly in the coastal towns of Wajima and Suzu. Roads became impassable and a major fire destroyed a historic market district in Suzu.
90 percent of the houses in Suzu destroyed
According to Masuhiro Izumiya, mayor of Suzu, "around 90 percent of the houses in the town have been completely or almost completely destroyed". The situation is "truly catastrophic", Izumiya said on the TBS television station.
Almost 34,000 homes in Ishikawa Prefecture were still cut off from the power supply on Wednesday, according to local utility companies. In several towns, residents had no running water in their homes.
Following a meeting of the crisis team set up after the quake, head of government Fumio Kishida spoke of a "race against time". The number of rescue workers was being increased further and the aim was to "do everything possible to save lives". He spoke of more than 130 people still waiting to be rescued in the areas affected by the earthquake. Many more people were trapped under collapsed buildings. "Please do everything in your power to save as many people as possible and remember that this is also a fight against time," Kishida continued.
Japan is located on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide. Every year, the country is shaken by hundreds of earthquakes, most of which cause hardly any damage. A massive undersea quake of magnitude 9.0 triggered a devastating tsunami wave in March 2011, killing around 18,500 people. The tsunami flooded the Fukushima nuclear power plant and led to the worst nuclear accident since the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Following Monday's quake, the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority reported no unusual incidents at the Shika nuclear power plant in the affected prefecture of Ishikawa or other nuclear facilities in the country.
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Source: www.ntv.de
