TOKYO (AFP) – Aftershocks shook Japan a day after a powerful earthquake left at least one person dead, with officials assessing damage yesterday from the jolt that destroyed several buildings.
The 6.5 magnitude quake hit the central Ishikawa region mid-afternoon on Friday at a depth of 12 kilometres, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
More than 50 aftershocks, some of them strong, had occurred by yesterday morning, the agency said, as it warned that heavy rain could trigger landslides in the area.
At least 29 people had been injured, Japan’s Disaster Management Agency said yesterday.
“Our staff are out checking damage from the quake,” an official from Suzu in Ishikawa prefecture, the hardest-hit city, told AFP.
Two people trapped inside destroyed buildings were rescued, he said, and around 50 people had moved to evacuation centres set up at schools and the city hall.
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TV footage showed a grocery shop strewn with broken bottles and other products that had fallen from shelves.
Some residents were seen clearing rubble in the rain after their wooden houses were partially destroyed.
“I asked a carpenter for a makeshift fix of the house, and the house is now covered with a blue tarp to protect it from rainwater,” one man told public broadcaster NHK.
Water outages affected more than three dozen households in Suzu, officials said yesterday, adding that the city had provided temporary public supplies after running water had turned brown in parts of the region.
The quake registered an upper six on the Japanese Shindo seismic scale, which goes up to a maximum of seven. Earthquakes are common in Japan, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
The country has strict construction regulations intended to ensure buildings can withstand strong quakes and routinely holds emergency drills to prepare for a major jolt.