Power Restored in Almost All of Quake-Hit Hokkaido

September 9, 2018

Sapporo- Power was restored in almost all of Hokkaido on Saturday, two days after a fatal earthquake rocked the northernmost Japan prefecture, causing all local households to lose power.

The death toll from Thursday's quake rose to 20, while 11 people were in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest and eight others were missing, according to the Hokkaido prefectural government.

Some 40,000 personnel from Japan's police, fire departments, Self-Defense Forces and others were being deployed for rescue and other operations.

According to Hokkaido Electric Power Co., electricity had come back on at 2.93 million households, or over 99 pct of all households in the island prefecture, as of 9 a.m. (midnight Friday GMT), while 20,000 households remained without power.

The firm said it is doing everything it can to restore its power supply facilities. It is asking Hokkaido people to save electricity to help ensure stable power supply.

Progress was also seen in efforts to restore public transportation systems paralyzed by the quake, which measured up to 7, the highest on the Japanese seismic intensify scale.

Services were resumed Friday for ferries connecting Hokkaido with the Honshu mainland and remote islands, as were domestic flights using New Chitose Airport and bullet train services on the Hokkaido Shinkansen line. On Saturday, international flights to and from the airport were resumed.

As of 10 a.m., 11,900 people were staying at evacuation shelters, according to the prefectural government.

Some 31,000 households, mainly in the towns of Atsuma and Abira, both close to the epicenter, were still suffering from water outages.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, rain continued until Saturday morning in and near Atsuma, where massive landslides occurred following the temblor. Many people are worried over secondary disasters amid aftershocks.

While power has been restored, Hokkaido will continue to face unstable power supply until Hokkaido Electric fully restores operations at its Tomato-Atsuma plant, the prefecture's largest thermal power plant, damaged by the quake.

As electricity demand is forecast to rise after this weekend, the company is considering conducting rolling blackouts. Jiji Press