Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday visited the quake-hit northern island of Hokkaido, home to 5.4 million people, as officials confirmed more deaths, bringing the toll to 42.
Abe visited hard-hit Kiyota ward on the eastern edge of Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido.
In some parts of Kiyota, the earth liquefied and sank as much as 1m, tilting houses, cracking roads and unleashing a mudflow that solidified and trapped vehicles in parking lots.
Photo: EPA
Abe was scheduled to visit residents at evacuation shelters in Atsuma before meeting Hokkaido Governor Harumi Takahashi.
A cluster of dwellings in the town were wrecked when a hillside collapsed from the force of the magnitude 6.7 earthquake on Thursday, creating deep brown scars in the landscape.
The Hokkaido government said the death toll stood at 39, with one body yet to be officially pronounced dead by a medical professional.
All but four of the victims were from Atsuma, a community of 4,600 people.
Abe’s visit comes as search-and-rescue operations continue around the clock to find two missing individuals.
“There is on-and-off rain at Atsuma. The work is continuing to look for the missing persons,” a regional disaster management official told Agence France-Presse.
The Japanese government has dispatched thousands of rescue workers, including members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, to look for the missing pair with the aid of bulldozers, sniffer dogs and helicopters.
Rescue workers used backhoes and shovels to search for the missing in a tangle of dirt, fallen trees and the rubble of homes left by the landslides.
All 3 million households in Hokkaido lost power when the earthquake damaged a thermal plant supplying electricity to the region.
A few hundred were still without power yesterday, mostly in Atsuma.
Officials are asking local residents and businesses to save energy, particularly after the weekend, as electricity supplies remain unstable.
About 2,600 people were staying in temporary shelters, down from a peak of 16,600, the Hokkaido government said.
The earthquake was the latest in a string of natural disasters to batter the nation.
Western parts of the country are still recovering from the most powerful typhoon to strike Japan in 25 years, which claimed 11 lives and shut down the main regional airport.
Japan sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are recorded.
On March 11, 2011, a devastating magnitude 9 earthquake struck under the Pacific Ocean, and the resulting tsunami in Japan caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in