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(SAPPORO, Japan) – Japanese rescuers and troops searched Saturday for missing persons for a third consecutive day in a northern hamlet buried by landslides caused by a powerful earthquake. Power was restored in most homes and international flights resumed to the main airport serving the Hokkaido area.
The Hokkaido government said Saturday that 30 people are dead or presumed dead and nine are still missing. All but three of the victims are in the town of Atsuma, where landslides have crushed and buried houses at the foot of steep wooded hills overlooking the rice paddies.
Toyota Motor Corp. announced that it would suspend almost all of its production in Japan on Monday. Toyota manufactures transmissions and other parts in Hokkaido and also has suppliers on Japan's four most northerly islands.
The magnitude 6.7 earthquake on Thursday at 3 am devastated the entire island of 5.4 million people, flooded parts of an area of the main city of Sapporo into deep sludge and caused destructive landslides.
Backhoes removed some of the solidified mud to clear a road in the Kiyota neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Sapporo. In some parts of Kiyota, the earth has yielded by liquefying, tilting the houses and letting the manholes stand a meter in the air. In the parking lots, the cars were still stuck in the mud that was reaching some of their wheels.
The return of electricity has been a huge relief for residents. About half of the residents of Hokkaido recovered electricity on Friday, and all households except 20,000 had power on Saturday morning.
"It was a relief that it was last night, but it took time," said Tatsuo Kimura, a 66-year-old resident of Sapporo, adding that the blackout was a reminder of the situation. importance of electricity in our life.
Tourists from South Korea and China were able to return home from New Chitose Airport, outside Sapporo. According to Japanese media, about 1,600 people spent the previous night at the airport.
Hokkaido has become a popular destination for tourists from other parts of Asia.
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Yuri Kageyama, editor of Associated Press magazine in Tokyo, contributed to this report.
