A powerful earthquake shakes Japan on New Year's Day. The death toll is rising. The search for the missing people continues under time pressure.
Tokyo – The number of missing people after the severe earthquake on Japan's west coast on New Year's Day has risen to more than 240. As Japanese media also reported, the government doubled the number of soldiers sent to the disaster area to 4,600 to support the emergency services. When searching for survivors, the first 72 hours are crucial. Anyone who is not rescued during this time will have their chances of survival drastically reduced.
There are dozens of reports that people are still lying under collapsed houses, it said. The mountains of rubble, damaged roads, landslides and aftershocks continued to hamper the operation of search and rescue teams.
In the hardest-hit Ishikawa prefecture, at least 700 people are still cut off from the outside world, it said. The power supply was interrupted in around 30,000 households and the water supply in 80,000 households, the Kyodo news agency reported. According to local authorities, around 33,000 people continue to have to stay in hundreds of emergency shelters. Since the New Year's Day earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6, the Sea of Japan region has been rocked by more than 150 aftershocks. dpa
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