Japan earthquake death toll jumps to 9

TOKYO: The death toll from a 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit southern Japan has climbed to nine people, officials said Friday after the powerful tremor damaged buildings and left hundreds injured.

“The toll currently stands at nine dead,” a disaster management official from hard-hit Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu island told AFP, after initial reports said two people had died following the quake late on Thursday.

The quake struck at 9:26 PM at a depth of 11 kilometres near Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There was no tsunami risk.

“The shaking was so violent I couldn’t stand still,” said Hironobu Kosaki, a Kumamoto Prefectural Police night-duty official.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at least 19 houses collapsed, and hundreds of calls came in reporting building damage and people buried under debris or trapped inside.

“Because of the night darkness, the extent of damage is still unclear,” he said.

The damage and calls for help are concentrated in the town of Mashiki, about 1,300 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said

One of the two victims, identified initially, died after being pulled from some rubble in Mashiki, and the other was killed in a fire, Matsushita said. A third person rescued from under a collapsed building is in a state of heart and lung failure.

Matsushita said rescue operations were repeatedly disrupted by aftershocks.

“There was a ka-boom and the whole house shook violently sideways,” Takahiko Morita, a Mashiki resident said in a telephone interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK. “Furniture and bookshelves fell down, and books were all over the floor.”

Morita said some houses and walls collapsed in his neighborhood, and water supply had been cut off.

Dozens of people evacuated their homes and gathered outside Mashiki town hall, sitting on tarps well after midnight. Some wrapped blankets around their shoulders against the springtime chill.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that the government has mobilized police, firefighters and self-defense troops for the rescue operation.

“We’ll carry out relief operation through the night,” he said. Suga said there no abnormalities at nearby nuclear facilities. The epicentre was 120 kilometres northeast of Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear plant, the only one operating in the country.