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Japan quake victims face prolonged water and power outages
About 58,000 households in Yatsushiro were still without running water or power two days after the 7.1 earthquake, according to city officials.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Japan has left many households in the port city of Yatsushiro dealing with outages that are proving especially dangerous in peak summer conditions, Reuters reports. Town official Akio Matsushita said many of the city’s roughly 58,000 households were still without running water or power on Thursday, two days after the quake hit Kumamoto prefecture.
Matsushita said officials do not know whether repairs to badly damaged water mains will take days, weeks, or months, citing the difficulty posed by the heat. With toilets out of order at city buildings, officials set up emergency toilets over sewer manholes outside in temperatures around 35 degrees Celsius, with high humidity, and he said the work will require time with no set timetable.
Reuters also reports that the Kumamoto prefectural government put the earthquake death toll at at least 17. Most of the deaths were tied to damage at Nippon Paper Industries’ paper mill and a possible gas explosion at Aeon’s shopping centre, and the government said another six people were in cardiopulmonary arrest.