Last Missing Person Found Dead in Hokkaido Quake, Pushing Up Death Toll to 40

September 10, 2018

Sapporo- The death toll from a powerful earthquake that severely damaged the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido on Thursday reached 40 as the last missing person in the disaster was found and confirmed dead in the small hours of Monday.

The victim was found in a landslide site in the town of Atsuma and identified as Tatsuyuki Yamamoto, a 77-year-old male resident of the Horonai district in the town, Atsuma officials said.

According to the Hokkaido prefectural government, 36 people, including Yamamoto, were confirmed dead in Atsuma, where multiple landslides occurred following the 6.7-magnitude inland quake, and one each in the towns of Mukawa and Sinhidaka and the cities of Tomakomai and Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido.

Meeting the press on Monday morning, Atsuma Mayor Shoichiro Miyasaka said he still cannot believe that mountains in the town have collapsed.

"As past records showed no mountain collapsing, I understood that the town was sediment disaster-resistant," he noted.

The Hokkaido government also said 2,716 people were at evacuation centers as of 10 a.m. the same day (1 a.m. GMT). Evacuation orders remained in place in the towns of Abira, Hidaka and Mukara as well as the city of Kitahiroshima. Some 50 buildings were severely damaged or destroyed.

Electricity supplies were restored almost across Hokkaido, one of Japan's four major islands. But the power supply-demand situation continued to be tight.

Anticipating a rise in demand from the outset of the week, Hokkaido Electric Power Co. <9509> had called on companies and residents to save power.

In response, railroad operators decided to reduce the number of services from Monday.

Hokkaido Railway Co., or JR Hokkaido, said it would cancel a total of 16 limited express trains per day between Sapporo and Asahikawa and between Sapporo and Muroran during evening to night service hours.

The Sapporo city government set the daily number of municipal train runs 30 fewer than usual for subway lines and 15 fewer for tram lines, eyeing service cancelations during daytime excluding rush hours.

According to the health and welfare ministry, the number of households experiencing water outages had fallen to 8,400 as of 5 a.m. Monday from a peak of 61,700. Jiji Press