Thousands of weary and frightened residents of northern Japan are preparing to spend a second night in shelters, cars or in the open onafter Japan's deadliest earthquake in nine years killed at least 20 people.
More than 1,500 were injured when a 6.8 magnitude quake and a series of powerful aftershocks struck rural Niigata prefecture, some 250 km north of Tokyo yesterday, setting off landslides, wrecking houses and buckling railway tracks.
Several aftershocks shook the region on Sunday, raising concerns of more landslides in the largely mountainous region.
One slide devastated a village, killing at least two people and cutting off about 600 residents for more than 12 hours.
The quake, coming hard on the heels of a typhoon that killed at least 80 people last week, is the deadliest in Japan since the Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,400 in 1995.
As darkness fell, nearly 130,000 households were still without power and many also lacked water, gas or phone service. Some mobile phone services were not working while operators had limited use on others to ensure emergency calls got through.
Soldiers in khaki uniforms were shown on television trying to rescue a mother and son trapped in a house smashed by a landslide, using chain saws to cut their way through the rubble.
In Ojiya, a textile centre of 40,000, a large area of land under a rail line had caved in, forming a crater-like hole and leaving train tracks dangling.
People picked their way on foot along broken roads.
"We are gathering information but we can't figure out details of the disaster damage as the roads are blocked in the mountain areas and phone lines are still suspended," Kyodo news agency quoted Ojiya Mayor Hirokazu Seki as saying.
In Tokyo, where the government set up a crisis centre, officials were trying to contact remote areas and arrange to transport food, water, blankets, heaters and other necessities.
Temperatures fell to around 5 degrees Celsius the previous night.
In a part of Ojiya cut off by landslides, residents had written 'SOS' on the road in big letters that could be seen from the air. Soldiers were seen helping people to a helicopter.
In the city of Nagaoka, the lopsided front carriage of a bullet train rested on the side of its track, the first derailment since the high-speed service began 40 years ago.
There were no injuries, a Transport Ministry official said.
The quake and aftershocks shook buildings in Tokyo on Saturday but there were no reports of injuries or major damage.
Officials have estimated that a quake of similar scale in the Tokyo area would kill about 7,000 people.
Small local hospitals overflowed with injured, some of whom were being treated in hallways.
More than 250 aftershocks that could be felt by humans had struck since the initial quake, the Meteorological Agency said, and officials warned of more strong tremors.
The dead in Niigata, a rice-growing region bordering the Sea of Japan, included a two-month old infant and an elderly man in hospital whose respirator was shaken loose by the quake.
A total of 67,000 people had been evacuated to schools and other public facilities, national broadcaster NHK said.
There were no reports of significant damage to industry in the region, which includes chemical and textile manufacturing as well as electronics and food processing.
Some factories had halted production, however, and damage to roads and railways raised concerns about distribution bottlenecks, media reports said.
Companies with operations in the area include Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd..
Officials warned of more landslides in areas hit recently by heavy rains from the record 10 typhoons to hit Japan this year.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters the quake "must be beyond our imagination in terms of fear and damage."
An extra budget would almost certainly be needed to help cope with the disasters, media reports said.
The quake's magnitude was measured according to a technique similar to the open-ended Richter scale but adjusted for Japan's geological characteristics.
Japan is one of the world's most seismically active areas, accounting for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude six or greater.