Kumamoto residents assess damage of Kyushu’s strongest quake
Kumamoto residents assess damage of Kyushu’s strongest quake
MASHIKI, KUMAMOTO PREF. – The toll from
the high-intensity earthquake in Kumamoto stood at nine dead and over
1,000 injured Friday as rescue crews scrambled to search the debris for
survivors.
The shallow magnitude-6.5 quake toppled houses and buckled roads in
and around the prefectural capital on Thursday night in what was
Kyushu’s first level 7 temblor on the Japanese seismic intensity scale.
“It was just like the Great Hanshin Earthquake or the Great East
Japan Earthquake. I never thought I would experience that here,”
mother-of-one Akiko Hakata told The Japan Times. “I hunched over my son
to protect him.”
“Last night, most people stayed outdoors, or stayed inside their car. It was so cold and frightening last night,” Hakata said.
Most of the victims were in the town of Mashiki, but heavy damage was
incurred elsewhere, including in the capital and at historic Kumamoto
Castle.
The quake struck at 9:26 p.m. at a depth of just 11 km, the Meteorological Agency said.
Officials are fielding hundreds of calls about damage and people
trapped under debris, but multiple aftershocks are disrupting rescue
operations.
At a collapsed house in Mashiki, however, an 8-month-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble 6½ hours after the quake.
More than 50 policemen and firefighters helped rescue Asami Nishimura
from her home, where the second floor collapsed. Her daughter, Miku,
was asleep downstairs when the quake struck.
Tens of thousands of residents from Mashiki and other towns packed into public shelters for the night.
Emergency food supplied at one center in Mashiki on Friday morning
ran out immediately, but supplies recommenced later in the day.
Residents called it the most frightening night of their lives.
At one evacuation center, Tomiko Takahashi, 94, recounted being
awakened by a loud noise. When the door refused to open, she got out by
squeezing through a crack in the walls, which had partially collapsed.
“I have never experienced something so frightening,” she said.
Hakata and her husband were looking for food and a place to charge
their phones in Mashiki but said they plan to evacuate to Kumamoto by
car because they heard the city still has water and electricity.
Ayumi Ishikawa, 34, said she and her family fled their home without many belongings.
“I’m sure we have to be ready for a prolonged evacuation, but I don’t have a sense of reality about this,” Ishikawa said.
Mashiki tourism official Shinji Takahashi said 20 to 30 percent of the buildings in the town collapsed.
“There are 34,000 people living here, so we are preparing four or
five elementary schools and libraries to be used as a shelter tonight,
and probably for a while,” Takahashi said.
Although volunteers have stepped forward to help coordinate the work, he said more manpower is needed.
“We are short of staff. If we go on like this, we will be going three or four days without sleep.”
Self-Defense Forces troops have been deployed, and the National
Police Agency said it has dispatched 1,084 officers from 19 prefectures
to help.
The injured are being treated around the town hall, where food and water are being distributed.
At a hastily set up medical center, a 16-year-old girl who was
diagnosed with a depressed skull fracture she said could not remember
what happened.
Power was cut in many areas, and gas leaks prompted Saibu Gas Co. to
turn off supplies to some homes in the capital. Tens of thousands of
households were without water.
The full extent of damage became clear on Friday.
A number of buildings collapsed, but many more sustained cracks or other structural damage that may render them uninhabitable.
Kumamoto Castle, a designated important national treasure and
arguably the prefecture’s No. 1 tourist attraction, sustained heavy
damage.
Part of the castle’s main wall collapsed and tiles fell from its
roof. Massive stone embankments crumbled in at least six locations, and
numerous cracks emerged in the walls, according to the castle’s
management office.
The damage in Mashiki may take a long time to repair. Roads were ripped apart and smashed kawara tiles and broken walls are everywhere.
Walking down the street is hazardous, given the many cracks in the asphalt and debris falling from buildings.
There is no running water and stores are shut — and all the while, aftershocks continue to jolt the neighborhood.
The epicenter was only 120 km from Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai
power station in Kagoshima, Japan’s only active nuclear plant.
Kyushu Electric said there were no abnormalities in the plant, adding that it is looking into any possible damage.
Shikoku Electric Power Co. said its idled Ikata nuclear plant in Ehime Prefecture sustained no damage.
JR Kyushu suspended operations on the Kyushu Shinkansen Line
following the quake. On the Sanyo Shinkansen Line, which connects Honshu
to Kyushu, power was lost between Hakata and Kokura stations but
operations later resumed at around 9:40 p.m.
The Meteorological Agency said it was the first intensity-7 quake
since the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and the first earthquake
of such a scale to hit Kyushu.
