In the aftermath of a powerful earthquake that hit central Japan and left at least one dead and 29 injured, authorities are still assessing the damage on Saturday, May 6.
The 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck at 2:42 p.m. Friday (5:42 a.m. GMT) in Ishikawa Prefecture, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). She initially estimated the magnitude at 6.3.
By Saturday morning, at least fifty-five aftershocks had been recorded since the initial tremor, according to the agency. She further warned of the risk of landslides in the area.
Landslides and destroyed buildings
"Our staff are assessing the damage from the earthquake," an official from Suzu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, which was hardest hit, told Agence France-Presse. Two people trapped in a destroyed building have been rescued, he added, and about fifty people have been given emergency accommodation in schools and the town hall.
On Friday, Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told the media of one death. The victim died after falling from a ladder in Suzu, on the Sea of Japan coast, according to a crisis management official there. The number of injured was revised upwards on Saturday by the national crisis management agency.
Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed destroyed or damaged wooden houses in the city, with shattered windows and battered roofs. You could also see a sagging mountain section.
The earthquake reached level 6 in places on the Japanese Shindo scale, which has 7. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) for its part estimated the magnitude of the earthquake at 6.2 and the located slightly off the coast, while the Japanese agency placed the epicenter on dry land.
Frequent earthquakes
The city of Suzu is on the Noto Peninsula, hit by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in 2007 that injured hundreds and damaged more than 200 buildings. Earthquakes are common in Japan, which sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an area of high seismic activity that stretches across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin. In March 2022, an earthquake of magnitude 7.4 occurred in particular in the east of the country, killing one person.
The archipelago has strict construction standards so that its buildings are able to withstand strong tremors. Emergency exercises to prepare for a major earthquake are regularly organized.
But Japan remains above all haunted by the memory of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake of March 11, 2011, off the northeast coast of Japan. The terrible tremor had resulted in a tsunami which was the main cause of the heavy human toll of nearly 18,500 dead or missing.
The ensuing nuclear accident at the flood-stricken Fukushima plant, where the cores of three of six reactors melted, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate and rendered entire communities uninhabitable for several years.
