Nearly 3 million households were left without power by the quake

A powerful earthquake Thursday on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido triggered dozens of landslides that crushed houses under torrents of dirt, rocks and timber, prompting frantic efforts to unearth any survivors. Image copyright EPA Image caption With bad weather on the way, it is feared the landslides may continue

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Many residents are still missing

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed 16 people had been killed, many people injured, and 26 remained missing. Officials said at least 366 were injured, five of them seriously, and about 30 people were unaccounted for after the magnitude 6.7 earthquake jolted residents from their beds at 3:08 a.m.

Nearly 3 million households were left without power by the quake — the latest in an exhausting run of natural disasters for Japan. It paralyzed normal business on the island, as blackouts cut off water to homes, immobilized trains and airports that caused hundreds of flight cancellations, and shut down phone systems. “We’ve heard there are people still stuck under the mud, so we’ve been working around the clock but it’s been difficult to rescue them,” a Self-Defence Force serviceman in Atsuma told public broadcaster NHK. “We will take measures to find them quickly,” he added. Dozens are still missing with many feared buried under rubble after the magnitude 6.7 quake triggered landslides. “It’s unbelievable.”

The island’s only nuclear power plant, which was offline for routine safety checks, temporarily switched to a backup generator to keep its spent fuel cool. Nuclear regulators said there was no sign of abnormal radiation — a concern after a massive quake and tsunami in March 2011 that hit northeast Japan destroyed both external and backup power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns. “Large quakes often occur, especially within two to three days (of a big one),” said Toshiyuki Matsumori, in charge of monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis at the meteorological agency. Many roads were closed and some were impassable. Japan is used to dealing with disasters, but the last few months have brought a string of calamities. The quake came on the heels of a typhoon that lifted heavy trucks off their wheels and triggered major flooding in western Japan, leaving the main airport near Osaka and Kobe closed after a tanker rammed a bridge connecting the facility to the mainland. The summer also brought devastating floods and landslides from torrential rains in Hiroshima and deadly hot temperatures across the country. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that up to 25,000 troops and other personnel would be dispatched to Hokkaido to help with rescue operations. Hokkaido is Japan's northern frontier and a major farming region with rugged mountain ranges and vast forests, and its people are accustomed to coping with long winters, isolation and other hardships. In the prefectural capital of Sapporo, a city of 1.9 million, the quake ruptured roads and knocked houses askew. A mudslide left several cars half buried, and the ground subsided, leaving drainpipes and manhole covers protruding by more than a meter (yard) in some places. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko told reporters Friday that it would take at least a week to fully restore power to all communities due to damage at a thermal power plant at Tomato-Atsuma that supplies half of Hokkaido's electricity. Peak power demand in Hokkaido, however, reaches 3.8 GW, so the restoration of all power across the island should take at least another week, Seko said. I thought my house would collapse.” Around 1.6 million households in the sparsely populated northern island of Hokkaido were still without power after the quake damaged a thermal plant supplying electricity to the region.
A magnitude 6.7 earthquake strikes the island of Hokkaido in Japan, killing 16 people, injuring 120 more and leaving 26 missing.