2024-01-01 23:47:03
Japan lived New Year’s Day immersed in fear, uncertainty and the distressing memory of the tsunami that in 2011 took the lives of between 16,000 and 18,000 people and introduced the entire planet into the atomic nightmare of Fukushima. An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale affected a dozen prefectures and caused damage that had not been quantified at midnight on Monday, but was presumed very high. Collapsed houses, roads “like cracked tofu”, destroyed businesses and fires caused by broken power lines and gas pipes were part of the emergency services’ stories and media images.
The main unknown lies in the number of fatalities. Unlike other terrible catastrophes that 2023 has left in Turkey, Morocco or Afghanistan, Japan has adapted to the seismic risk. Authorities reported four deaths in relation to the tremors, two of them from heart attacks in the city of Nanao, while the search continued for an unknown number of people trapped in the rubble of homes and businesses. However, the prelude to a much larger tragedy occurred as the morning wore on, when firefighters managed to advance in the midst of the destruction. Some media warned of the existence of “multiple deaths” in the Ihsikava prefecture, the epicenter of the earthquake, after residents were found trapped under buildings and light towers. Police and firefighters received 290,000 calls for help in this region alone.
Nineteen health centers in the prefecture and two others in neighboring Niigata remained on the brink of collapse, without electricity, water or medical gas. Given the disastrous state of the roads, the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, gave orders to “send by air or sea” water, food, blankets, kerosene and medicine to the most devastated areas and set priorities such as facilitating the transit of rescue groups because “the victims of collapsed buildings must be rescued as soon as possible.” In several municipalities, scenes have been seen of families asking for “calm” from their loved ones, prisoners in “holes of life” left by the collapsed walls and ceilings, waiting for rescuers.
The earthquake occurred a short distance from the coasts of Ishikawa and Niigata and at a very shallow depth: only about ten kilometers. It was not a single shock, but rather it was the strongest of a series of twenty earthquakes recorded between four and half past five on Monday afternoon (from 8:06 a.m. to 9:29 a.m. Spanish time). The tsunami alarm was immediately declared at its maximum level, which had not been activated since March 11, 2011, when the Great Eastern Earthquake occurred.
End of alarm
That tragic phenomenon, 9 degrees, a colossal monster emerging from the depths of the Earth’s crust, occurred 130 kilometers from Tokyo, unleashed a wave ten meters high and swept away thousands of lives in the Miyagi region. Even today, 2,600 victims are honored who have never been recovered, swallowed by the same sea among destroyed houses, vehicles, barges and bridges.
This time, the fury was contained. While thousands of Japanese fled the coast to high places, the first episodes of intense waves – although less than one and a half meters – hit the archipelago in a dozen points. The main alarm was focused on the prefectures of Yamagata, Niigata Kaminakagetsu, Sado, Toyama, Fukui and Hyogo, since waves of three meters high were expected there, as well as in Ishikawa, where waves of five meters were expected. The Government mobilized the army and the coast guard.
The tense vigil lasted three hours, a time in which the Japanese watched the waves arrive with the fear that the next one would be the killer. However, around eight thirty in the afternoon, the US monitoring center established in Hawaii for this type of phenomenon deactivated the alert. The end of the threat was also felt in parts of Russia and the two Koreas, which had also remained within the danger area of the sea wave.
The telluric movement generated authentic human movements towards the high areas moved by fear and the collapse of walls and roofs. “We left with what we were wearing, but we are afraid to return home because of the aftershocks,” said the owner of a restaurant in the city of Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture. At least 36,000 homes have been left without electricity and the authorities are concerned about providing shelter to citizens from the freezing night temperatures of these dates. A return to normality is unlikely this week. In fact, the Government recommended that the population remain alert for the next few days since there is a possibility of new aftershocks.
He also ordered that no one return to their homes if they have been affected by the tremors due to the risk of landslides. In fact, on Monday there were dozens of buildings damaged by the earthquake that collapsed in the following hours, in which the ground shook up to 25 times, although more lightly.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave orders to “send by air or sea” water, food, blankets, kerosene and medicine to the most devastated areas.
Eiichi, a 72-year-old ceramist living in Suzu, told the ‘Asahi Shimbun’ that “we were watching television when the earthquake hit. The long horizontal and vertical tremors continued for several minutes and we thought the house would collapse, so we went outside. I could see families running with elderly people in tow. Some roads were impassable due to the damage. The aftershocks continue intermittently. “I’m unbearably anxious.”
“I could not stand it”
“When I ran out of my parents’ house,” says another resident of the city of Itoigawa, Niigata Prefecture, “the Hokuriku Shinkansen elevated train was shaking noisily in front of me. We got into my car and waited. My brother and niece hugged each other and crouched down. I looked into the house through the open door. Part of the wall had collapsed. Debris was scattered on the ground. The television was working and I immediately heard a journalist shout: ‘A tsunami is coming.'” Maiko Hashimoto, manager of the Tabino Hotel Sado, located in the same region, explained how “the tremor was so violent that it was not possible to bear it. I fell to the ground and the earthquake alarm on my cell phone immediately went off. “Everything was moving again and again, and it felt longer than the Great Eastern Earthquake.”
The hospitals in Ishikawa, Niigata, Fukui, Toyama and Gifu treated the largest number of injured; most with a fracture or bruises from the impact of some object. In some videos you can see how the earthquake surprises customers in supermarkets and subjects them to the blows of bottles and cans while they seek shelter. Among the most affected cities are Kurobe and Wajima.
Two women wait kneeling on the floor of a store in Kanazawa. Reuters
The landscape of destruction is, in any case, very broad. Dozens of highways and roads collapsed. Abandoned cars in the middle of the roads or ditches drew panic among all those who preferred to continue on foot in search of shelter. The Government installed a crisis cabinet to organize care centers, the distribution of aid and the management of railways and airports. 1,400 people were stranded on four Shinkansen trains
The cabinet confirmed that there was no damage to the nuclear power plants, although some information suggested that hundreds of liters of water from the pools had overflowed in one of them. The owners of Fukushima assured that the plant, this time, remained safe from the earthquake and the onslaught of the waters.
«Run now! Do not give up! Run for your life!
The Japanese public broadcaster NHK interrupted regular programming at 4:06 p.m. (local time). Three minutes later the most powerful seismic wave was recorded. And thirteen later, the television screens flashed with messages like ‘tsunami’, ‘run away’, ‘evacuate’, while an announcer urged in an urgent voice: “Run now! Run to a higher place! Don’t give up and run! Lives! Run as soon as possible to save your life! Among the thousands of Japanese who heard the message is Tashido, who this Monday told the media how he jumped off the couch, put his wife on his shoulders because “an injury to his legs prevents him from walking and I ran with her on his back” until that a neighbor put them in his car. He lives in Sado, but “I will not return until they assure me that the danger has passed.” He regrets that he will not be able to attend the New Year’s ceremony scheduled for this Tuesday, since the emperor and empress have canceled the event “saddened by the magnitude of the damage.”
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