Death Toll from Kumamoto Quakes Increases to 44

Kumamoto, April 19 (Jiji Press)--The death toll from a series of powerful earthquakes that have hit Kumamoto Prefecture and other areas in the Kyushu southwestern Japan region since Thursday has increased by two to 44 by early Tuesday, while the number of people injured in the temblors topped 1,100, authorities said. Police, the Self-Defense Forces and other organizations have continued to race against time in the search for survivors of the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck in the small hours of Saturday and aftershocks. On Monday afternoon, a woman and a man were found in areas hit by landslides in the village of Minamiaso in Kumamoto. They were confirmed dead later. All the 44 victims were in Kumamoto. The woman, believed to be an elderly person, was found in the village's Kawayo district, where six people have been unaccounted for. The man was discovered in the Nagano district, where an accommodation facility, called Hinotori, is located. Search has not started for a different man, who went missing near the collapsed Aso Ohashi bridge on a national route in Minamiaso, due to a possible secondary disaster. Authorities are set to boost the search for other missing people as 72 hours passed after the main quake rocked Kumamoto and nearby areas around 1:25 a.m. Saturday (4:25 p.m. Friday GMT). Survival rates are believed to fall rapidly after 72 hours. The main temblor followed the 6.5-magnitude foreshock Thursday night that measured the maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale in the town of Mashiki in Kumamoto. Around 8:41 p.m. Monday, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 occurred, registering upper 5 on the Japanese scale in the city of Aso in Kumamoto and the city of Taketa in neighboring Oita Prefecture. Kyushu Electric Power Co. <9508> said that there has been no trouble at the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at its Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, which also borders Kumamoto, after the Monday night quake. The two units, restarted last year, are the only active nuclear reactors in Japan at present. The company also said that no trouble has been reported at its idled Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Prefecture, northwestern Kyushu. On Monday, part of the transport networks in affected areas was restored, raising hopes for the elimination of delays in the delivery of relief goods. Airlines are set to resume flights to Aso Kumamoto Airport in Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday. Progress has also been made in the efforts to restore infrastructure. The water supply disruption in the city of Kumamoto, the capital of the prefecture, is expected to be resolved by Tuesday morning. Kyushu Railway Co., or JR Kyushu, resumed operations of the section between Arao and Kumamoto Stations on its Kagoshima Line on Monday afternoon. Also on Monday, the company began work to remove an out-of-service Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train that derailed after Thursday's foreshock while heading for a rail yard. There is no prospect of restarting services on the Kyushu Shinkansen Line, however, due to damage to over 100 places on the tracks and other railway facilities. The transport ministry and other organizations opened an alternative road to National Route 57, which was heavily damaged by a landslide in Minamiaso, as a main route linking the city of Kumamoto and the Aso area in Kumamoto Prefecture. As of 1:30 p.m. Monday, a total of 93,000 people were taking shelter in evacuation centers, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government. As of 7 p.m., water supplies resumed on a trial basis at some 260,000 of the 320,000 households that have been without water in the city of Kumamoto. According to Kyushu Electric, power outage in Mashiki, which was devastated by the foreshock on Thursday, has mostly been resolved. But many houses in Minamiaso and the city of Aso remain without power. City gas supplies had been disrupted at 105,000 households as of Monday afternoon, according to Saibu Gas Co. <9536>. U.S. forces in Japan started airlifting relief supplies to disaster areas on Monday afternoon using the Marine Corps' MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft. It is the first time for the U.S. military to support areas of Japan hit by large-scale earthquakes since its Operation Tomodachi mission for the Tohoku northeastern region hit by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent huge tsunami in March 2011. END (C)JIJIPRESS