Landslide, crumbling streets, climbing death toll: The aftermath of Japan's earthquakes
UPDATED April 16, 2016 PT, 3:30 p.m. with new death toll
Toppled buildings and destroyed roads could be seen throughout the Kyushu island of Japan on Saturday local time as people began to assess the damage of an overnight 7.3-magnitude earthquake.
And just hours after daylight broke, a 5.4-magnitude temblor rattled the southern island. It was the third quake since Thursday's magnitude-6.5 earthquake in the area.
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About 41 people have died following the quakes, according to the Associated Press. Roughly 1,500 have been injured by the quakes, 80 of them seriously, Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told the wire service.
Rescue workers sifted through rubble and flattened homes Saturday morning in search of survivors. The multiple quakes and various aftershocks have left people in the region on edge.
Kumamoto police received more than 300 calls from people seeking help and reporting people trapped or buried underneath debris, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said during an emergency news conference early Saturday, the AP reports. Nearly 200,000 homes had lost electricity and drinking water systems had failed in the area, according to Japanese media. A major landslide was reported in Minamiaso.
Patients were evacuated early Saturday from a 500-bed hospital in Kumamoto, the capital of Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyushu Island, which was on the verge of collapse, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. A castle in Kumamoto has been roped off since Friday as boulders encircled the damaged grounds.
In Uto City, the city hall building was badly damaged, making it unsafe to enter and in Mashiki, the asphalt outside the town hall was cracked. Cracked asphalt was a common sight Saturday morning throughout the region. A village near a dam was evacuated because authorities feared the dam may burst due to damage.
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Brittany Levine Beckman was Mashable's managing editor. She enjoys crafting feature ideas, learning new things, and party parrots. Before working at Mashable, she covered community news at the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register. That's how she met a zonkey and the tallest man in the world.
