MASHIKI // Troops and rescue teams rushed to save scores of people trapped after a pair of strong earthquakes in Japan killed at least 41 people, injured nearly 1,000 and left hundreds of thousands without electricity or water.
Rainfall was forecast to start pounding the area on Saturday, threatening to further complicate the relief operation and set off more mudslides in isolated rural towns, where people were waiting to be rescued from collapsed homes.
The death toll stood at 32 from the magnitude-7.3 quake that shook the Kumamoto region on the south-western island of Kyushu early on Saturday. On Thursday night, Kyushu was hit by a magnitude-6.5 quake that killed nine people.
Nearly 200,000 homes were without electricity, and drinking water systems had also failed in the area, Japanese media reported. Television footage showed people huddled in blankets, sitting or lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the floors of evacuation centers. An estimated 400,000 households were without running water.
Hundreds of people lined up for rations at shelters before nightfall, bracing for the rainfall and strong winds. Local stores quickly ran out of stock and shuttered their doors, and people said they were worried about running out of food.
“I could hear the noise of all my dishes come crashing down, the rattling, and I was shocked and sad, now I’ve lost all my dishes,” said Ayuko Sakamoto, who was among those in line for the food.
“The death toll rose to 41,” Akira Ito, a spokesman at the Kumamoto prefectural government, said on Saturday.
Nearly 1,000 people were hurt, 184 of them seriously. More than 91,000 were evacuated from their homes, while more than 200 homes and other buildings were either destroyed or damaged.
Prime minister Shinzo Abe expressed concern about secondary disasters, with forecasters predicting rain and strong winds for later in the day. With the soil already loosened by the quakes, rainfall can set off mudslides.
“Daytime today is the big test” for rescue efforts, Abe said. Landslides have already cut off roads and destroyed bridges, slowing down rescuers.
Police received reports of 97 cases of people trapped or buried under collapsed buildings, while 10 people were caught in landslides in three municipalities in the prefecture, Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported.
Television footage showed a collapsed student dormitory at Aso city’s Tokai University that was originally two floors, but now looked like a single-story building. A witness said he heard a cry for help from the rubble. Two students were reported to have died there.
In the town of Mashiki, where people were trapped beneath the rubble for hours, an unconscious 93-year-old woman, Yumiko Yamauchi, was dragged out from the debris of her home and taken by ambulance to a hospital. Her son-in-law Tatsuhiko Sakata said she had refused to move to shelter with him after the first quake on Thursday.
“When I came to see her last night, I was asking her: ‘Mother? I’m here! Do you remember me? Do you remember my face?’ She replied with a huge smile filled with joy. A kind of smile that I would never forget. And that was the last I saw of her,” Mr Sakata said.
Among the other casualties, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government, were a 69-year-old man who died of head injuries and a 28-year-old woman who suffocated.
The area has been rocked by aftershocks, including the strongest with a magnitude of 5.4 on Saturday morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency said that the magnitude-7.3 quake early on Saturday may have been the main one, with one from Thursday night a precursor.
David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences at The Open University in Britain, said the Saturday morning quake was 30 times more powerful than the one Thursday night. “It is unusual but not unprecedented for a larger and more damaging earthquake to follow what was taken to be ‘the main event’,” he said.
The epicentres of Thursday’s and Saturday’s quakes were relatively shallow – about 10 kilometre – and close to the surface, resulting in more severe shaking and damage. National broadcaster NHK said as many as eight quakes were being felt an hour in the area.
One massive landslide tore open a mountainside in Kumamoto’s Minamiaso village all the way from the top to a highway below. Another gnawed at a highway, collapsing a house that fell down a ravine and smashed at the bottom. In another part of the village, houses were left hanging precariously at the edge of a huge hole cut open in the earth.
Mr Suga, the chief Cabinet secretary,said the number of troops in the area was being raised to 20,000, while additional police and firefighters were also on the way.
He pleaded with people not to panic. “Please let’s help each other and stay calm,” he said.
*Associated Press