Rescue workers yesterday slogged through mud and debris looking for dozens feared missing after a giant landslide ripped through a Japanese seaside resort town, killing at least three people.
Eighty people were still unaccounted for, Shizuoka prefectural disaster management official Takamichi Sugiyama said.
Officials were preparing to release their names, hoping to reach some who might not have been caught in the landslide.
Photo: AFP
Initially, 147 of those people were unreachable, but that number was revised downward after city officials confirmed some had safely evacuated or were away when the disaster struck, it said.
The disaster is an added trial as authorities prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games, due to start in less than three weeks, while Japan is still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters that rescue workers, including police, self-defense troops, firefighters and coast guard personnel, were doing their utmost “to rescue those who may be buried under the mud and waiting for help as soon as possible.”
At least 20 were initially described as missing.
Since Atami is a vacation city, many apartments and homes are unoccupied for long parts of the year, with their listed residents living in other places. Others might have been away visiting relatives or friends, or not answering the telephone, officials said.
They hoped to get in touch with more of those unaccounted for yesterday.
The landslide occurred on Saturday after several days of heavy rain. Witnesses heard a giant roar as a small stream turned into a torrent, carrying black mud, trees, rocks and debris from buildings.
Bystanders were heard gasping in horror on smartphone videos taken as it happened.
Like many seaside and mountain towns in Japan, Atami is built on steep hillsides, its roads winding through bits of forest and heavy vegetation.
Three coast guard ships and six military drones were backing up the hundreds of troops, firefighters and other rescue workers toiling in the rain and fog in search of possible survivors.
The mudslide struck Atami’s Izusan neighborhood, known for its hot springs, a shrine and shopping streets. Atami, which has a population of 36,800, is about 100km southwest of Tokyo.
Naoto Date, an actor who happened to be visiting the Izusan area after a filming session, woke up to sirens in the neighborhood when he was in his house, which is next to his mother’s. Both of them were safe, but he made sure his mother walked to a nearby community center to evacuate, and he called all his friends and schoolmates to make sure they had survived.
“I grew up here, and my classmates and friends live here. I’m so sad to see my neighborhood where I used to play with my friends is now destroyed,” Date said in a video interview from his home in Atami.
Date said his friends all had safely evacuated and his mother had moved to a hotel in a safer location. Date, who usually lives in Tokyo, said he was staying away from evacuation centers due to concern about COVID-19.
Even though his house was located in a hazard area, he said he never imagined it would be hit by a disaster.
“I used to take it not so seriously and I regret that,” he said.
He filmed scenes in his neighborhood with muddy water gushing down and rescuers wading through knee-deep mud. He also filmed the sea, where vehicles were floating with debris from destroyed homes.
“Many people saw their homes and belongings and everything washed away. They won’t be able to return home and it must require an unimaginable effort to recover,” he said.
Three people had been found dead as of early yesterday, the Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency and local officials said.
Twenty-three people stranded by the mudslide were rescued, including three who were injured.
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