Rescuers ‘battle against time’ after series of earthquakes hit Japan | DW News

Rescuers ‘battle against time’ after series of earthquakes hit Japan | DW News

Japan is bracing for more aftershocks following a series of earthquakes on New Year’s Day authorities have now confirmed at least 30 people killed and it’s feared that that number could rise as rescue crews struggle to reach some of the hardest hit areas dozens of Tremors shook Japan’s West Coast hitting

The Ishikawa prefecture the strongest had a magnitude of 7.6 and more than 30,000 homes were left without power but the government says nuclear power plants uh were not affected the Army has been called in to help with rescue operations and nearly 100,000 people ordered to leave their homes firefighters work to extinguish

The Blazers in the center of wajima a city in Japan’s isikawa region after a series of earthquakes shook the coastal area on Monday the authorities said dozens of stores and houses were damaged in the fires that followed the death to is expected to rise as troops and rescue teams reach the worst affected

Areas Japan’s prime minister fumio kushida set out what helicopter surveys have found so far I have received reports that very large scale damage has been confirmed including numerous human casualties building collapses and fires I almost 100,000 people had to leave their homes and stay in shelters like this gym Japan’s meteorological agency warned

That more strong shocks could hit in the coming days on a day where many Japanese gather at shrines to offer prayers for the new year the Quake measuring 7.6 magnitude struck in the afternoon and dozens of smaller Quakes followed with roads damaged and buildings destroyed the more remote Northern parts of Ishikawa are

Inaccessible and the Prime Minister called the efforts to rescue the survivors a battle against time let’s speak to journalist Sonia blaska in Tokyo for more Sonia the death toll has been rising as search and rescue teams are arriving on site and I understand access to isolated areas has

Been a problem have they now been able to reach some of those most affected areas um to be honest it’s even difficult to tell here because also the the news outlets are not able to to go there and and Report uh because everything things blocked and we’ve basically had to rely on helicopter

Images as well um thankfully because of the the cancellation of the tsunami warning now they can access the area from the sea because that was an issue when the tsunami warning was still in place so that is an option but a lot of roads are damaged uh there are numerous

Reports and and images of landslides blocking roads um even cars under those landslides a lot of buildings are collapsed and and toppled over only just an hour ago I saw images um from the the wajima city area that was burned really badly um that has only been able to to

Kind of uh only Crews only were able to access that very recently so I think because the the scale of the earthquake is so big um you know stretching over six prefectures um yeah it’s it’s really difficult to assess the the full scope of this um catastrophe yet so

Information still trickling in but at this point can can you already give us more of a sense of H of how badly affected Japan has been and in which areas I mean how does it compare to last earthquakes uh that Japan has experienced I mean on the intensity

Scale the Japanese one this was a level seven the highest level so the ground shook really violently violently and people said they’ve never experienced something like this in this area before I mean compared to the the worst disaster that we’ve seen in 2011 it’s it’s it’s still on a different scale

Thankfully um but uh despite Japan being used to earthquakes and landslides and natural disasters in general this is really one of of the bigger ones and I think the coming days will probably show that as well and what else can we expect in the coming days uh is there still a

High risk of aftershocks yes yes yes so the meteorological agency has been warning that another level seven earthquake could hit the region I mean the sheer number of of earthquakes in the past 24 hours has has been really intense there was so many warnings uh really every 10

Minutes there was another warning sent out to the mobile phones which is really not something that even Japan is used to and thankfully the the country has relatively good building standards so even a quake of that size you know if you compare it to other countries does

Relatively little damage but a lot of old houses have collapsed because the roofs are really really heavy and that’s an ongoing issue even you know now when the aftershocks continue Sonia thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us that is a journalist Sonia blaska in Tokyo

Search and rescue operations were underway in Japan on Tuesday after Ishikawa Prefecture, in the Noto region along the Sea of Japan, was hit by a series of earthquakes on Monday. The strongest quake logged a magnitude of 7.6, according to the US Geological Survey and other agencies. At least 30 people were killed, officials said. Dozens more were injured.

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