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Rain and cold threaten Japan quake recovery efforts
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-26 09:13
Some 100,000 exhausted survivors of Japan's deadliest earthquake in a decade
awoke in makeshift shelters for a third day on Tuesday as rain threatened to
hamper relief efforts and trigger new landslides.
Aftershocks continued to rattle rural Niigata prefecture, 250 km (150 miles)
north of Tokyo, after the first big tremor on Saturday that killed at least 25
people and injured more than 2,700. Three people, including two children, were
missing.
With weather and visibility deteriorating, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
called off a planned visit to the area.
While the number and strength of aftershocks was starting to taper off,
authorities warned that it was still too early to relax and urged caution around
quake-weakened buildings.
"I'm really tired. I want to get home and really rest," said a man at one
evacuation centre, where people had spent the night crammed together sleeping on
the floor.
Saturday's initial earthquake, with magnitude of 6.8, was the deadliest in
Japan since the Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,400 people in 1995, and
reminded Tokyo's 12 million residents that they too are vulnerable to a major
quake.
Tens of thousands of people have already spent three nights in evacuation
centres or in the open as the temperature fell below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F).
Many complained about a lack of food, but an official in Ojiya, the hardest
hit town, told national broadcaster NHK that supplies were now sufficient. What
was really needed, he said, was diapers, wet tissues and disinfectant.
Some slept in cars with engines running but many petrol stations were closed
due to a lack of electricity to run pumps.
Others made the best of things by spending the night in a greenhouse to keep
warm. Others camped in parking lots.
Rain was forecast to fall throughout much of the day and officials warned
that even light rain could set off new landslides, forcing still more people to
evacuate.
"Even a little rain at this point could really raise the danger of
landslides," an official at an emergency centre set up by the Niigata local
government told Reuters.
As of Tuesday, the number of people evacuated had risen to 98,000, media
reports said.
ELDERLY AT RISK
A forecast fall in temperature below 10C raised concerns of health problems
among the evacuees, many of whom are elderly.
Several of those who died are believed to have succumbed to ailments such as
strokes brought on by fatigue and stress.
Police three people -- a 39-year-old woman, her three-year-old daughter and
two-year-old son -- were missing.
"They may have been hit by landslides on the way back home from Niigata city
by car," said a police spokesman.
Tohoku Electric, the regional utility, worked through the night to restore
power but 36,550 households were still without service.
About 2,800 homes were completely or partly destroyed and more than 1,000
other buildings damaged, public broadcaster NHK said. Phone services were
disrupted, but were being restored.
Some train lines were still halted and many roads were unpassable.
The tremors follow a record 10 typhoons to hit Japan this year, including one
that killed at least 80 people last week.
More than 7,000 deaths could be expected in Tokyo if the city was hit by a
magnitude 7.2 quake, experts have said.
Although the toll from the Niigata quake was relatively low, media said there
were still lessons to be learned.
"The government's earthquake readiness has been centred mainly on large
cities up to now," the daily Tokyo Shimbun said. "However, preparation in rural
areas is clearly lagging.
"This has been shown to be a huge blind spot."
The magnitude of the earthquakes was measured according to a technique
similar to the Richter scale but adjusted for Japan's geological
characteristics.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active
areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of
magnitude 6 or greater.
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