Thousands of people were facing a second night in emergency shelters or out in the open on Sunday after the deadliest earthquake to strike Japan in nine years left at least 21 people dead and more than 1 800 injured.
A series of earthquakes measuring up to 6,8 on the Richter scale caused widespread damage on Saturday evening in Niigata prefecture, 240km north-west of Tokyo.
More than 60 000 people were evacuated, homes were flattened or set on fire by gas leaks, and villages were cut off after bridges and roads collapsed.
Among the dead were five children, according to local media reports. They included three who were buried beneath their collapsed home and a two-month-old boy who apparently died of shock.
Takejiro Hoshino, whose 12-year-old grandson died when their house collapsed, said: ”I got out and then we all went back to try to save the others, but it was too late.”
Two carriages of a bullet train came off the rails — the first derailment in the high-speed service’s 40-year history. None of the 150 passengers was injured.
The death toll was the worst since January 1995, when an earthquake of magnitude 7,2 killed 6 400 people in the western city of Kobe.
Saturday’s quake struck just two days after Japan’s worst typhoon for 25 years left 80 people dead. Officials said torrential rain had made hillsides in the area more susceptible to collapse.
In the town of Ojiya, the hardest hit area, thousands of people spent the night in tents, schools and community centres. Several villages were cut off from the town after bridges collapsed and roads were made impassable by landslides. Military helicopters flew in food, water and blankets, and airlifted stranded villagers. In one village a landslide killed at least two people and left 600 others isolated for more than two hours.
”We don’t know in detail the extent of the damage because the roads are still blocked in the mountains and telephone lines are still down,” Hirokazu Seki, the mayor of Ojiya, told the Kyodonews agency. ”All lifelines — electricity, gas and water — are crippled.”
On Sunday afternoon 158 000 households were still without electricity. Gas, water and telephone services have yet to be reconnected in several areas. Hospitals in Niigata, a mainly rural region on the Sea of Japan coast, said they could barely cope with the injured.
The earthquake was felt as far away as Tokyo, where high-rise buildings shook and then swayed for up to a minute.
The prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said the earthquake had been ”beyond our imagination in terms of fear and damage.”
The first — and most powerful — earthquake was centred just 38,4km below ground, which is why the shaking was more violent than usual for a quake of that magnitude. Five more powerful quakes jolted the area over the next two hours.
The Niigata area last experienced seismic shifts on a similar scale in 1828, when 1 400 people died.
Meteorologists recorded more than 250 aftershocks and officials warned that another powerful earthquake could strike the region this week. – Guardian Unlimited Â