ANAMIZU (AFP) – Hampered by bad weather and damaged roads, Japanese rescuers searched yesterday for 222 people still missing four days after a devastating earthquake as the death toll approached 100.
Two elderly women were pulled from the rubble on Thursday, but hopes of finding other survivors after the 7.5-magnitude quake on New Year’s Day were fading with rain, snow and falling temperatures forecast in the coming days.
Thousands of rescuers from all over Japan have been battling aftershocks and roads littered with gaping holes and blocked by frequent landslides in the central Ishikawa region to reach hundreds of people in stranded communities.
Authorities said yesterday that 222 people were unaccounted for, down from an earlier count of 242, including 121 in Wajima and 82 in Suzu. The death toll was raised to 94 from 92, with 464 people injured.
The dead included a junior high school boy visiting his family, reports said.
Around 30,000 households were without electricity in the Ishikawa region, and 89,800 homes there and in two neighbouring regions had no water. Hundreds of people were in government shelters.
