After being shaken by a series of powerful earthquakes, Japan’s Kyushu region is grappling with aftershocks as emergency crews scramble to rescue survivors trapped under rubble.
At least 16 people died in the latest Kyushu earthquake, according to Kumamoto Prefecture’s disaster management office. The 7.0-magnitude quake hit early Saturday local time.
Two days earlier, a 6.2.-magnitude quake rattled the area, killing nine people.
The latest and most powerful earthquake struck near the city of Kumamoto. It toppled buildings, collapsed bridges and shredded structures into pile of debris.
At least 23 people are buried inside buildings, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
Residents were already reeling from the effects of the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Thursday near Ueki city, just 15 kilometers away.
“The first earthquake was very big,” said Osamu Yoshizumi, the senior chief of international affairs in Kumamoto. “We thought it was the big one.”
That initial earthquake was a “foreshock” to the latest one, according to USGS.
After Saturday’s deadly quake, Kumamoto prefecture continues to experience aftershocks as many as 165 aftershocks.
“I feel every aftershock,” said Yoshizumi, who was working from the city hall building in Kumamoto. “It’s swaying here every hour.”
Rescue efforts
The aftershocks could hamper rescue efforts as emergency workers attempt to pull people trapped in the rubble. TV Asahi showed crews crawling over a collapsed roof in an attempt to find an elderly couple. An 80-year-old man was pulled from the rubble, according to TV Asahi.
Japan has deployed 20,000 self-defense forces to the rescue effort, Suga said.
The tremors appear to have caused extensive damage, overturning cars, splitting roads and triggering a landslide as shown by TV Asahi footage. Television images showed mostly desolate streets, shards of broken glass on the streets and people huddled outside.
The Kumamoto government has opened over 100 evacuation centers for residents and have started handing out food, water and blankets, Yoshizumi said.
Hundreds treated
The Red Cross treated more than 1,000 people in the Kumamoto area Friday, but the organization anticipates the number will increase following Saturday’s earthquake.
“The most serious [patient] cases were cut by glasses or the collapse of some houses,” said Nobuaki Sato, director of the International Relief Division at the Japanese Red Cross.
“We don’t know what is happening in the whole disaster area because it is a remote mountain area and some big bridges were down and many landslides were found so we were working around the clock and are making assessments. But so far the road access is not easy to the remote areas.”
Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 7,262 people have sought shelter since Friday in the Kumamoto Prefecture.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will visit the area Saturday.
“I would like to see the site with my own eyes and hear from the victims directly,” Abe said.
Japan’s “Ring of Fire”
The shallow depth of the latest quake and the dense population of where it struck could prove to be devastating, according to experts.
“No question, this is a large and very important earthquake,” said Doug Given, a geophysicist with the USGS. “And it will do a lot of damage.”
“The four islands of Japan are on the edge of what’s traditionally been known as the ‘Ring of Fire'” — a stretch along parts of the Pacific Ocean prone to volcanoes and earthquakes.
Victor Sardina, a geophysicist in Honolulu, Hawaii, told CNN that the latest quake was about 30 times more powerful than the first one near Ueki. He predicted “severe, serious implications in terms of damage and human losses.”
Japanese media reported a small scale eruption of Mt. Aso on Saturday morning. It was unclear whether it’s related to the earthquake, according to the Japan’s meteorological agency.
