/ 25 October 2004

New tremors rock quake-hit Japan

Strong aftershocks rocked central Japan on Monday as exhaustion took its toll on thousands spending a third night in shelters after the country's worst earthquake in nearly a decade left 25 people dead. Nearly 400 tremors have followed the first quake of 6,8 on the Richter scale late on Saturday. <li><a class='standardtextsmall' href=''http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124314''>Quake jolts faith in bullet trains</a> <li><a class='standardtextsmall' href=''http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124287''>Japan in shock after earthquake</a>

Strong aftershocks rocked central Japan on Monday as exhaustion took its toll on thousands spending a third night in shelters after the country’s worst earthquake in nearly a decade left 25 people dead.

Nearly 400 tremors have followed the first quake of 6,8 on the Richter scale late on Saturday in Niigata, a coastal area 200km north-west of Tokyo, with the biggest on Monday measuring 5,6 at 6.05am local time.

Police said 25 people have died from the quakes, with the death toll rising as residents — particularly the elderly — are worn down physically and mentally.

Ei Kikuchi (74) became the latest casualty after spending a second night in a neighbour’s car and complaining of breathing problems. A 54-year-old also died of fatigue after he tried to clear his home of debris, police said.

Police announced that a 39-year-old woman, her three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son were still missing from the quake.

The new tremors have prompted the evacuation of about 97 800 people to schools and other public buildings, with some wanting more privacy sleeping in their cars. About 60 000 houses were still without power.

Kimi Seki, a 81-year-old woman from the worst-hit town of Ojiya, said she has been unable to sleep after seeing her house reduced to rubble and feeling the sporadic aftershocks.

”I still feel scared”,” Seki said.

”I can’t feel at ease staying with a lot of people,” she said of the shelters.

While the new tremors caused no casualties, the Meteorological Agency warned of a 30% probability of aftershocks of six or above on the Richter scale hitting the region within three days.

Masahiro Yamamoto, who heads the agency’s earthquakes division, told a news conference in Tokyo that Niigata residents ”should keep in mind that strong tremors may continue to occur”.

Adding to the woes, light rain began on Monday evening with more rain forecast for Tuesday, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to visit.

Japanese newspapers were full of heart-wrenching accounts from Niigata, a largely rural and mountainous region on the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.

Relatives could do nothing but listen to the cries of a 12-year-old girl calling out for help as she was trapped under her collapsed second-floor room, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

She died along with her 64-year-old grandfather, who was also buried under the rubble.

At least 1 967 people have been injured in the earthquakes, police said.

The government said it was ready to compile a supplementary budget to cope with damage from the quakes and a series of powerful typhoons, including Tokage, which last week killed about 80 people.

But Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said it was too early to announce the size of the budget, saying it would take two to three months to estimate the economic impact of the quake.

Share prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange slumped 1,82% on Monday, in part due to nervousness after the quakes, dealers said.

The United States ambassador to Japan, Howard Baker, offered a largely symbolic $50 000 in disaster aid and said the US ”stands ready to provide additional assistance to help ease the burden of the victims”.

The quakes flattened hundreds of houses, cracked more than 1 000 roads and triggered 11 fires and about 90 landslides, particularly in ground softened by the typhoon, officials said.

The earthquake was the deadliest to hit tremor-prone Japan since 1995 when 6 433 people were killed by a quake measuring 7,3 on the Richter scale in western Kobe city. — Sapa-AFP

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