Japan Toll Rises to 30 after Powerful Quake

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The death toll from a powerful quake that triggered landslides in northern Japan rose to 30 Saturday, as tens of thousands of rescue workers raked through the mud for survivors.

The majority of the dead are from the small rural town of Atsuma, where a cluster of dwellings was wrecked when a hillside collapsed from the force of the 6.6-magnitude quake, causing deep brown scars in the landscape.

Around nine people are still unaccounted for in the town and around 400 sustained minor injuries, according to the local government of the northern Hokkaido Island.

“We never had landslides here,” said Akira Matsushita who lost his brother in Atsuma.

“I couldn’t believe until I saw it with my own eyes,” he told TV Asahi. “When I saw it, I knew no one could survive”.

Some 40,000 rescue workers, including Self-Defense Forces drafted in specially, were searching for survivors with the aid of bulldozers, sniffer dogs and 75 helicopters, according to the top government spokesman, AFP reported.

“They’re doing their best around the clock,” Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

All three million households on Hokkaido Island lost power when Thursday’s quake-damaged a thermal plant supplying electricity to the region, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said power was mostly restored.