#japan Number of dead, missing rises to 1,400

News Desk The Yomiuri Shimbun Publication Date : 13-03-2011

The great earthquake that hit eastern Japan on Friday afternoon (March 11) had left at least 1,400 people dead or missing as of Saturday afternoon, with about 210,000 people taking refuge in shelters in the Tohoku region, authorities said Saturday. The National Police Agency said 521 people were known dead with 735 missing as of 3pm Saturday in 12 prefectures including Tokyo and Hokkaido. About 500 of the dead were in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. Separately, around 200 bodies were brought into two gymnasiums in Sendai alone, although exact counts were not available. Altogether, a minimum of about 1,450 people were believed dead or missing. According to the NPA, 1,128 people were injured in the magnitude-8.8 quake and about 210,000 people evacuated their homes. The quake hit the top rating on the Japanese intensity scale of 7. It was the largest earthquake in the nation's history of seismic observation. The Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 was magnitude 7.9, while the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 was magnitude 7.3. More than 100 aftershocks had been recorded as of 10am Saturday. In Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, many houses and buildings were destroyed by tsunamis and fires. Large scale fires were reported at various places. The Self-Defence Forces and the Japan Coast Guard moved their rescue operations into full gear Saturday. Chief Cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday morning at a meeting of the emergency disaster headquarters held at the Prime Minister's Office that the death toll would rise much higher than 1,000. "More than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed, according to reported figures alone," said Edano, adding the real toll would greatly exceed that number. The Meteorological Agency announced Saturday morning more than 100 aftershocks with an intensity of 1 or larger had been recorded since the Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake hit eastern Japan. The defence ministry said it would dispatch about 50,000 SDF members to quake-hit areas. About 2,000 officers from 27 prefecture-level police headquarters, including the Metropolitan Police Department and Hokkaido police, as well as medical doctors, were also dispatched for rescue and relief operations. The Iwate prefectural government confirmed Saturday morning via helicopter that more than 80 per cent of the city of Rikuzen-Takata had been submerged in Friday's tsunami. The prefectural government used its helicopter to rescue about 100 people stranded on the roofs of a hospital and the municipal government building. About 50 people were also found stranded on the roof of a supermarket in Ofunato, where SDF members were trying to rescue them. Cities and towns were also ruined in Miyagi Prefecture. According to the Miyagi prefectural government, most of Onagawacho and the Oshika district of Ishinomaki were devastated by a tsunami. One-third of Kesennuma was submerged and three large fires were reported.

Whole towns gone--no cars or people seen

Koji Yasuda The Yomiuri Shimbun Publication Date : 13-03-2011

The Yomiuri Shimbun's airplane Mirai, which I was aboard, left Hokkaido's Hakodate Airport shortly after 8am Saturday (March 12), heading for the areas devastated by the massive Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake and subsequent tsunamis on Friday (March 11). The plane flew south along the Pacific Ocean coastline. At 8:23am, devastated areas with collapsed houses and other visible tsunami damage began to appear near Hachinohe Port in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. Machines and other equipment lay scattered around factories at the port having been tossed here and there by the surging waters. Floating oil was forming spiral patterns offshore. The plane flew further south. The town of Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, once nestled in the curve of a bay, had been swept away by a tsunami. The ground was soaked in seawater and shining as it reflected the sunlight. A settlement, above which white smoke was rising, was spotted at the back of another bay. It was Yamadamachi in Iwate Prefecture. The town was swallowed up by sea waters. After a series of tsunami waves Friday, the seawater surface was already calm. But pieces of wreckage were floating around the area. At 8:53am, the plane flew over Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. The flatland, which extends into the sea like a cape, was totally swallowed by a tsunami, leaving no trace that a town was there. On an area of higher ground, I spotted a dozen cars and several people. I wondered if they were waiting to be rescued. They were looking up the sky with dazed expressions. The next town south was Rikuzen-Takata, but almost no buildings were to be seen where the town should have been located. It seemed as if the port town had suddenly vanished. What I could see there were only medium-rise buildings believed to be made of reinforced concrete, such as a hospital. Piles of rubble were seen scattered even as far as wooded areas several kilometres away from the coastline. The plane entered Miyagi Prefecture. The city of Kesennuma smoldered beneath clouds of white smoke. The fishery town was ravaged by a tsunami during the day and suffered intense blazes at night. As if nothing burnable was left, the tragic area was filled with only rubble. Black smoke also boiled into the sky at Kesennuma, on a part of the coast where heavy oil was flowing from damaged tanks. Inland urban areas were still covered with seawater and white smoke was rising in some places as if the areas had been destroyed by air raids.

A toll on body, mind and soul

Kwan Weng Kin The Straits Times Publication Date : 13-03-2011

When the killer quake struck northern Japan on Friday (March 11), and rattled all of Tokyo at the same time, my first reaction was to check if friends and relatives were safe. My wife naturally thought of her parents who, as it turned out, were out when the tremors hit. They proved to be uncontactable as mobile phones were virtually paralysed. It was not until almost three hours had passed before we finally heard from them. Both in their 80s, they had to walk home, a half-hour trudge in the cold as there were no taxis available. In normal circumstances, we would have gone to pick them up. But on Friday, our car was stuck in a basement garage and the car lift was out cold, just like our lifts. Frantic calls to another relative caught only an engaged tone. We found out later that the handset had been knocked off the cradle by the tremors and no one was home either. Thankfully they were all unhurt. In any case, we discovered later that fixed phones, like mobile phones, were also practically unusable after the quake. The only phones that could be used to make domestic calls were the increasingly scarce public phones. A close friend fretted for over a day because he failed to hear from his father who lives alone in Sendai, the largest city in northern Japan which suffered the heaviest casualties. His father finally called Saturday afternoon on a public phone from an evacuation centre where he had spent the night. But they managed to speak only briefly as his father said there was a long queue behind him, all waiting to call their loved ones. On Saturday, some semblance of sanity returned to Tokyo, with trains in the city mostly running again, but at reduced schedules. Due to technical problems, there were gaps in the network where train services had not resumed, forcing people to walk from one station to the next in order to pick up their journey. On the night of the quake, there was a minor run on supermarkets and convenience stores which did not bother me all that much since our freezer happened to be full. But I found out Saturday that shops had run out of dry batteries for torches as many households in Tokyo had been without power for several hours the night before. Like most friends that I called, I had slept badly after the quake struck. My wife and I were on edge. Every aftershock - and they were very frequent - seemed like the prelude to a bigger tremor. The building we live in would sway ever so lightly, and the floor sometimes heaved as well. Like having a 24-hour fainting spell, the entire experience has left me both physically and emotionally spent.

Militares japoneses lideran el complicado operativo para rescatar a las víctimas

Por Agencia EFE – hace 5 horas

Tokio, 13 mar (EFE).- Unos 100.000 militares japoneses, apoyados por socorristas de casi 70 países y un portaaviones estadounidense, trabajan desde hoy en el complicado operativo de rescate en el noreste de Japón tras el fuerte terremoto y tsunami del viernes.

El seísmo ha causado ya casi mil muertos confirmados, pero se espera que la cifra final sea mucho mayor y supere los 10.000 fallecidos solo en la provincia de Miyagi, la más afectada junto a Fukushima, donde se intenta localizar a 1.167 desaparecidos.

Hasta 200 cadáveres fueron hallados esta mañana cerca de la costa oriental de la isla de Honshu, mientras los equipos de rescate luchan por llegar a las zonas devastadas y peinan el litoral en busca de víctimas del seísmo.

Según la agencia Kyodo, la ola gigante de diez metros de altura se llevó por delante el 90 por ciento de las casas en tres pueblos costeros de Fukushima, que además se enfrenta al peligro que entraña el sobrecalentamiento de varios reactores de dos plantas nucleares.

Los equipos de salvamento están coordinados por las Fuerzas de Auto Defensa de Japón, que equivalen al Ejército y cuyo despliegue fue elevado hoy de 50.000 a 100.000 efectivos por orden del primer ministro nipón, Naoto Kan.

"Pido el mayor esfuerzo para salvar las vidas de cuantas más personas sea posible. Lo daremos todo por rescatar a aquellos que estén aislados", declaró Kan a su salida de la reunión de emergencia del Gobierno.

Sin embargo, las autoridades temen que cientos o miles de personas se vieran arrastrados a alta mar.

Un hombre fue rescatado hoy por un patrullero que lo localizó agarrado a una madera flotante a quince kilómetros de tierra firme en Fukushima.

Fuentes oficiales explicaron a Kyodo que las labores se están viendo dificultadas por la enorme extensión del área afectada, las constantes réplicas del seísmo y los problemas para acceder a pueblos enteros ahora parcialmente sumergidos por el agua.

Los 380.000 evacuados pasaron la noche en 1.400 refugios, algunos a oscuras por los cada vez más frecuentes cortes del suministro eléctrico en el litoral.

Puesto que los aeropuertos civil y militar de Miyagi están inundados, Estados Unidos ofreció su portaaviones Ronald Reagan como lanzadera improvisada de los helicópteros que reparten la ayuda humanitaria.

EEUU, que cuenta con 48.000 soldados destacados en suelo japonés, ha enviado uno de los mayores contingentes aportados por la respuesta de la comunidad internacional a la tragedia en Japón, a la que esta vez se unió un país vecino y tradicionalmente enemigo como China.

Rusia, que mantiene una enconada disputa territorial con Japón por las islas Kuriles, también está dispuesta a echar una mano, anunció el primer ministro ruso, Vladimir Putin.

Varias agencias de Naciones Unidas y un total de 69 gobiernos -entre ellos los de Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, España y Uruguay- ofrecieron asistencia para las víctimas en Japón.

Tokio dio también su visto bueno a que México enviara un equipo de veinte socorristas y tres ingenieros, acompañados por diez perros adiestrados para buscar víctimas bajo los escombros.

Otros países despacharon bomberos, médicos y especialistas en el manejo de grúas para retirar los restos de edificios en ruinas e intentar hallar a los atrapados bajo los escombros con perros adiestrados, y personal experimentado en situaciones similares en Haití, Indonesia o Nueva Zelanda.

También llegaron entre ayer y hoy cientos de toneladas de material de emergencia como comida, ropa, equipos de potabilización de agua, tiendas de campaña, mantas y otros artículos de primera necesidad.

La ayuda se transportará a los damnificados en camión y por carreteras secundarias al estar cortadas las autopistas y suspendido el ferrocarril.

"Hay mucha gente que está incomunicada y necesita asistencia. La realidad es muy cruda", reconoció el ministro de Defensa nipón, Toshimi Kitazawa.

Carlos Santamaría

Sphere: Related Content