Japan earthquake survivors struggle to rebuild lives

On New Year's Day, Shinngi Takesono was in his car, when he felt a magnitude 5.7 foreshock. He stopped to call his wife Hatsue, asking her to turn off a heater at home — a potential fire risk.

The 58-year-old is the chief priest of a 500-year-old wooden temple in the center of the small town of Wajima in the northwest of Japan.

Shortly afterwards, 59-year-old Hatsue, who he had gotten married to only five years earlier, texted him back to say she had turned the heater off. It was the last time he heard from her.

When Takesono rushed back to the temple two minutes later, next to which the couple lived in a 45-year-old house, the main quake hit. The shaking was so strong he could not even get out of the car. Then, right in front of his eyes, their house collapsed, its ground floor completely squashed.

He called his wife's name many times. She did not answer. "I wish I had just told her to save herself,” Takesono said full of regret and trying to choke back tears, standing in the temple yard covered with broken roof tiles and debris on January 5.

In the afternoon, two police search units including a sniffer dog began taking turns climbing into the rubble, carrying out loose bits and pieces, and smashing obstacles with heavy tools. However, after well over three hours, they had to give up empty-handed.

Takesono now wants his story to be a cautionary tale to others. In a twist of fate, just a few meters across the street, a large swath of land was reduced to nothing but charcoal and molten plastic and metal, still smoldering four days later, after a massive fire had raged through the famous morning market and lacquerware quarter after the quake. It destroyed about 200 buildings and a legacy, but left Takesono's temple unscathed.

Quake causes widespread destruction

His wife Hatsue became one of currently 102 people in Ishikawa prefecture, whose fate remains unknown since the magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked the Noto peninsula a week ago.

As of Tuesday, the death of 202 people was confirmed, 91 and 81 respectively in the most severely affected towns of Suzu and Wajima.

At least 565 people were injured. The tremors, which reached the highest levels of six and seven on the Japanese "Shindo," or seismic intensity, scale, destroyed at least 1,400 houses — not even counting the most affected areas yet. They also triggered tsunami warnings along the Japanese west coast, sinking boats, and wrecking sea walls, cars and houses in Suzu.

On arrival in Wajima 72 hours later, the air was filled with blaring sirens from ambulances and firetrucks and the droning of helicopters. This soundscape would regularly be pierced by the shrieking noise of yet another quake alarm pushed to mobile phones.

The extent of the destruction was on a scale that even earthquake-prone Japan rarely sees: entire quarters, especially those with many traditional buildings, have turned into large heaps of displaced roofs, broken tiles, splintered wooden pillars, glass shards, scattered belongings, squashed cars, with power lines dangling from tilted electricity poles, and manholes protruding from sunken streets.

In the town center, a modern concrete apartment block of seven stories, built under much stricter rules than older buildings, fell 90 degrees to one side. Despite that, a couple used a ladder to climb back into it four days later, trying to retrieve cushions from their kitchen. "Don't film this house," the woman said upset. Another concrete building drilled itself into the ground, now slightly leaning over one of the main road arteries into town. Most streets had massive cracks and holes, and the pavement was covered in mud due to liquefaction.

Finding survivors is a race against time

"Seventy-two hours are considered the critical window, after which the chances of survival shrink rapidly," said Kuniyuki Kawasaki, general manager at the Wajima Municipal Hospital with 175 beds. Its lobby was filled with Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT), soldiers from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, Japanese Red Cross workers, and other rescue personnel from across the country.

Patients brought in after that crucial window were usually badly injured, Kawasaki pointed out. After being trapped under heavy structures, the victims' legs would often turn purple, and would have to be amputated to save their lives.

However, doctors knew from experience that patients in their 80s and 90s would not have the physical strength to survive the operation, Kawasaki said. So even if the patient was still alive, doctors could sometimes do nothing but watch them die, he noted. "It is unbearable," he said explaining how sad the tragic events made him feel several times, in a raw display of emotions, untypical in Japan.

Survivors have been fighting fear, cold, hunger and difficult sanitary conditions, as the quake had cut off the water supply across large parts of the Noto peninsula. "Finally, we got some portable toilets today," a female employee at the shelter near Takesono's temple said on January 5. They had been providing special plastic bags to people, which are either discarded after one use or left in the toilet bowl until full.

A day before, a major local supermarket had been able to open its doors again. A long line formed in front of it, as many were eager to buy water and sanitary items like diapers, employee Ryouto Sabu said.

He greeted customers, holding up a sign saying, "only 10 items per household please." It had taken Sabu and his colleagues five hours from their store's headquarters in Hakusan to Wajima, a trip of usually just two hours. The drive currently includes utterly terrifying sections with hundreds of landslides left, right, and even above tunnels, with rocks the size of a car blocking whole lanes, parts of the roads sunken by over a meter, deep fissures, and fallen trees overhead, only held back by power cables.

As access is severely limited, long traffic jams form, with even rescue teams being stuck in them for hours.

'Some places are still cut off'

Rescue and relief efforts have been even slower in more remote places like hard-hit Suzu, a town of 12,000 people at the northernmost tip of the peninsula. "Some places are still cut off, as roads are not usable. However, they have received some help from helicopters," an exhausted-looking Yukiya Ozawa said on January 6, one of his shoes only held together by tape.

The manager at Suzu town hall's general affairs department said that while food supplies had finally started to arrive, the lack of toilets, heating and gasoline was a major problem. Only very few places had electricity and there was no running water anywhere. "About 80% to 90% of the buildings are not inhabitable," he said. Ozawa estimated that 90% of the town's population were currently in shelters.

Nevertheless, a glimmer of hope is in sight for Suzu. Ozawa said they were promised that they would receive the first units of temporary housing on 12 January. According to Ishikawa authorities, more than 28,000 people remain in about 400 shelters.

Since the weekend, the weather has deteriorated, bringing torrential rain and snow, raising the landslide risk even further. The meteorological agency is warning of further aftershocks with a maximum seismic intensity of a strong 5 or higher within the next month.