TOKYO: Aftershocks shook Japan a day after a powerful earthquake left at least one person dead, with officials assessing damage on Saturday from the jolt that destroyed several buildings.

The 6.5 magnitude quake hit the central Ishikawa region mid-afternoon on Friday at a depth of 12 kilometres (seven miles), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

More than 50 aftershocks, some of them strong, had occurred by Saturday morning, the agency said, as it warned that heavy rain could trigger landslides in the area.

At least 29 people had been injured, Japan’s disaster management agency said.

“Our staff are out checking damage from the quake,” an official from Suzu in Ishikawa prefecture, the hardest-hit city, said. Two people trapped inside destroyed buildings were rescued, he said.

An evacuation order was issued for 1,630 residents of Suzu, with about 250 taking shelter in evacuation centres, Jiji news agency reported. More than 100 households were without running water as of Saturday afternoon, and roads were closed in many areas, the agency added. The city had provided temporary public supplies after running water had turned brown in parts of the region, officials said earlier.

TV footage showed a grocery shop strewn with broken wine bottles and other products that had fallen from shelves. Some residents were seen clearing rubble in the rain after their wooden houses were partially destroyed.

“I asked a carpenter for a makeshift fix of the house, and the house is now covered with a blue tarp to protect it from rainwater,” one man told public broadcaster NHK.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2023