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Northern Japan Suffers Fatal Earthquake

The death toll from last Thursday’s powerful earthquake on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido is at least 16, with 26 people remain missing.

Days after the magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit the Island of Hokkaido rescue workers are still looking for 26 people. The Japanese rescue workers using bulldozers and sniffer dogs climbed through the mud Thursday to find survivors from many landslides that buried houses after the earthquake.

One village resident said: “It was horrendous. The land slid all the way down and I thought I would die. I thought my house would collapse”

Approximately 22,000 rescue workers called up from the Self-Defense Forces handed out emergency water supplies and long lines formed at petrol stations and supermarkets, as people stocked up fearing further quakes. 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.

The earthquake also collapsed a handful of houses and walls in the main city of Sapporo.

However, considering the strength of the quake, the death toll was relatively light, with most victims coming from a landslide in Atsuma.

The quake was the latest in a string of natural disasters to batter the country.

Western parts of the country are still recovering from the most powerful typhoon (Jebi) to strike Japan in a quarter of a century, which claimed 11 lives and shut down the main regional airport.

Image for illustration purposes.