JAPAN: Survivors of the quake that hit Niigata spend a second sleepless night in shelters

Many of the elderly and frail evacuees displaced by an earthquake in north-western Japan, which killed nine people, wake up in emergency shelters after a second sleepless night. About 9,000 people woke up on Wednesday (July 18) after a second sleepless night in schools and other make-shift evacuation centres in north-western Japan after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake killed nine people, destroyed homes and even triggered a minor radiation leak at a nearby nuclear plant on Monday (July 16). In the town of Kariwa, not far from one of the many nuclear plants that dot this region and six kilometres from the quake's epicentre, over 220 people sought refuge overnight in the local town hall. The evacuees, many of them elderly, slept crammed side-by-side with each other on hard wooden floors with one straw mat and a blanket to pass the night. "My body hurts. Because I am old, I can't sleep without my futon," said Masao Hayashi, a 79-year-old retiree, who added he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. "I can't sleep at all. It's cold and I am tired and worried," added Mitsuko Kobayashi, a 59-year-old housewife. Worries were mounting about the health of evacuees and other residents, many of whom are elderly and who continued to arrive in droves into the emergency shelters. "People who had been sleeping in cars found that hard so more people have come in to sleep out in the shelter," said Niigata prefectural employee Naoki Abe. The prefecture was hit in October 2004 by a quake, also with a magnitude of 6.8, that killed 65 people and injured more than 3,000. Many of the victims in that earthquake were elderly people forced to cram in cars for days and who later died of deep vein thrombosis - more commonly called economy class syndrome. Streets in Kashiwazaki and Kariwa were lined with damaged or collapsed houses, mostly wooden structures with heavy tile roofs, and fresh water was trucked in as many residents continue to live without water or electricity. Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. Monday's earthquake was the deadliest quake in Japan since a magnitude 3 tremor hit Kobe city in 1995, killing more than 6,400.

ITN Source | July 18, 2007

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