Death toll from Japan quake rises above 200

The toll from the New Year's earthquake in Japan has increased to 202 dead, in addition to 565 injured, according to data released this Tuesday by the Government. With regards to the missing, their total has been lowered to 102.

This Monday, a week after the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that shook the center Japan on January 1, the estimate of the number of missing people after the strong earthquake reached 323, so the figure has been reduced considerably. The majority of the missing were recorded in the city of Wajima, one of the most affected towns on the Noto Peninsula, which sits on the shores of the Sea of Japan and was also the scene of multiple serious fires as a result of the earthquake.

The earthquake, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, caused thousands of landslides and the collapse of buildings and roads throughout the region. It also unleashed a tsunami with waves of more than a meter high on the coast of the Noto peninsula, a narrow strip of land about a hundred kilometers long. The tremor was felt as far away as Tokyo, 300 km away.

In addition, a week later, further landslides are feared due to snowfall in the area and icy conditions are expected to further complicate traffic on roads damaged by the earthquake, according to authorities warning in recent hours.

Rescue services are also continuing their efforts to reach more than 2,000 people, some of whom are in critical condition, isolated by roads damaged by the earthquake, and to deliver food and equipment to them. Some 29,000 people remained sheltered Sunday in 404 government shelters.

Japan still retains the memory of the devastating 2011 earthquake that triggered a tsunami, which left some 18,500 dead or missing and caused a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima plant. Japan is one of the countries most prone to earthquakes. The Asian country is located in an area known as the Ring of Fire, located on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and characterized by concentrating some of the most important subduction zones in the world. It is a place where two tectonic plates collide by moving in opposite directions, a movement that produces collisions between both plates and releases energy that translates, among other things, into earthquakes like the one that the Japanese country suffered at the start of 2024.