KURIHARA -Rescue workers searched yesterday for 11 people still missing after a powerful earthquake hit rural areas of northern Japan, killing at least nine and injuring more than 200.
Almost 400 searchers dug through the remains of a remote hot springs resort that was swamped by a massive landslide, killing three people and leaving another four missing after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday morning.
The earthquake collapsed mountainsides, buckled bridges and swept landslides across roads but casualties were limited by the sparse population in the affected areas in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, about 300km (190 miles) north of Tokyo.
However, there have been hundreds of aftershocks and officials warned that there could be strong quakes to come.
"I don't know where we'll go or what we will do now," said Naoshi Miura (80), who with his wife Kirino (76) and their two dogs was airlifted by helicopter from their mountain home.
Rescue workers at the collapsed two-storey inn picked their way through debris yesterday after carefully crossing a river of mud covered with makeshift wooden boards. They have so far recovered the bodies of two women and a man from the debris, local officials said.
In other areas, thousands of troops, fire crews and other relief crews worked to clear narrow mountain roads, restore power and water, and confirm the fate of other missing people.
"It's a very mountainous area and if the roads are cut, even if you call out the troops, you can't get in," said Masaaki Sakakibara, a military official in charge of co-ordinating rescue operations in Kurihara, near the quake epicentre.
"We are lucky this time because the weather is good, so we can use helicopters. The roads here are very narrow and this limits access."
Nine people had been confirmed dead, and public broadcaster NHK said 234 were injured.
About 300 people spent Saturday night in evacuation centres.
"There's no water and cooking is hard, so we are living on instant food," said Tokue Takahashi (73), who came to an evacuation centre to get water.
Many returned home yesterday but about 135 people were expected to spend a second night in evacuation centres, local officials said. As is often the case when natural disasters strike rural Japan, many of those affected were elderly, some living alone.
"If people live alone, it's a worry for their health," said Minoru Suzuki (77), a volunteer medical worker. "Stress is a big problem."
Medical experts say steps must be made to prevent those affected from suffering mental health problems. "You have to avoid what happened in other places after the earthquakes like Kobe and Niigata - the people who end up dying isolated in temporary housing," said Rimi Fuse, a psychiatrist who specialises in treating disaster victims.
Some factories in the area were damaged, cutting production at a Fujitsu semiconductor factory and a car plant.
There have been more than 200 aftershocks since Saturday but experts said the scope of the quake was far smaller than the one that hit China a month ago. The sparse population and Japan's more strict building codes had also limited damage.
Japan is one of the world's most seismically active areas, accounting for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude six or greater.
In October 2004, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Niigata region, killing 65 and injuring more than 3,000. A magnitude 7.3 quake hit Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,400. - (Reuters)