Tokyo: Plane collision overshadows relief efforts in earthquake zone in Japan

EIt was already dark when the Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane touched down on the tarmac at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday evening. It is difficult to see from videos what happened just a moment later: the plane with flight number 516 collided with a small Japanese Coast Guard plane. What is clearly visible, however, is that both catch fire, the passenger plane explodes, smoke and flames rise meters high.

Five people on board the coast guard plane died in the collision, Japanese media later reported. The pilot was seriously injured. Live images from the Japanese television station TBS showed passengers leaving the airliner via an emergency slide while the fire was being extinguished. Japan Airlines announced on Tuesday evening that all 367 passengers and twelve crew members had been rescued. The plane coming from Hokkaido in northern Japan burned completely. All runways were closed, an airport spokesman said. It initially remained unclear how the collision could have occurred.

At least 48 dead after earthquake

As the television channel TBS reported on Tuesday and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later confirmed in a press conference, according to the New York Times, the coast guard plane was supposed to bring material to the area on the country's west coast that was shaken by a series of earthquakes on New Year's Day . Of the five crew members who died, Kishida said: “They were filled with a determined sense of mission, and what happened to them is very unfortunate and frightening.” He expressed his condolences to the families and reiterated that the authorities would do everything to ensure that the collision ended “Relief efforts” after the earthquakes were not affected.

According to authorities, the death toll from the quake has now risen to at least 48. At least 137 people suffered injuries as a result of the first particularly strong quake of magnitude 7.6 on New Year's Day in the Noto Peninsula area on the Sea of ​​Japan, the Mainichi Shimbun daily reported. The quake was felt from Hokkaido in northern Japan to the southwestern main island of Kyushu. Several tidal waves around one meter high hit the coast.

“A fight against time”

Numerous houses were destroyed and some fell victim to fires. Roads were torn up or partially blocked by landslides, and trees fell. In the hard-hit city of Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture alone, more than 200 homes and businesses burned down. “I was very scared, I screamed. “I thought I was going to die,” Australian tourist Kumudu Thuyakontha described the events to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

The government in Tokyo set up a crisis team and the armed forces were called in to provide disaster relief in Ishikawa. “The search and rescue of those affected by the quake is a battle against time,” Prime Minister Kishida said in an emergency meeting. “We have to rescue them as quickly as possible, especially those who are still trapped under collapsed buildings.” According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the country has been shaken by a total of 155 quakes since Monday.

Low flames were still burning in places in Wajima on Tuesday morning, and firefighters were still on duty. Thick smoke hung over the area. Other houses had collapsed or were badly damaged. Destroyed infrastructure such as impassable roads made rescue work more difficult. Tens of thousands of residents were still without power on Tuesday, and the water supply failed in several cities. Around 1,000 people were housed at an air force base in Wajima and provided with blankets, water and food, the government said.

Further strong earthquakes possible

The meteorological authority warned of further strong quakes this week, especially in the first two or three days after the particularly severe tremor on New Year's Day. The national meteorological agency lifted a tsunami warning issued for Japan's entire west coast on Tuesday.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) condoled the victims' families on the X platform, formerly Twitter. “After the severe earthquake in Japan, our thoughts are with the victims and their families who are now struggling with the consequences of these natural disasters,” wrote Scholz. He stands by “our Japanese friends”. Baerbock wrote that for the people in Japan the new year begins “with terror and worries.” Her thoughts are “with the families and friends of those killed and with those who fear for the missing.” She wishes the injured a speedy recovery.

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world because three tectonic plates border each other beneath the island nation. In March 2011, a magnitude nine earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that devastated large areas in the northeast. Around 20,000 people died and a disaster occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.