The Latest: Number of people In Japan quake shelters doubles
Posted April 15, 2016 8:59 pm.
Last Updated April 17, 2016 1:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OZU, Japan – The latest on the earthquakes in Japan (all times local):
1:30 p.m.
Japanese media say the number of people taking shelter after the two earthquakes in southern Japan has doubled to more than 180,000.
Kyodo news service, citing the Kumamoto prefecture government, says 183,882 people were in shelters in the prefecture on Sunday morning.
On Saturday, there were around 90,000 people.
Many others slept in their cars or sheltered under tarps and other protection overnight.
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11:20 a.m.
Search efforts have resumed Sunday morning for about half-a-dozen missing from back-to-back earthquakes that killed 41 people in southern Japan.
The search is focused on debris-strewn communities in a mountainous area near Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says the Defence Ministry is co-ordinating with the U.S. military in Japan to add U.S. aircraft to the search and recovery effort.
Landslides from Saturday’s magnitude-7.3 earthquake have blocked roads and destroyed bridges, making it difficult to access the area east of Kumamoto, a city of 740,000 on the southwestern island of Kyushu.
Overnight rainfall did not appear to cause any more landslides, as had been feared, and the skies had cleared by morning.
About 80,000 homes in Kumamoto prefecture still didn’t have electricity Sunday. Japanese media reported that an estimated 400,000 households were without running water.
