Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 14, 1993 TAG: 9307140137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: OKUSHIRI, JAPAN LENGTH: Medium
At least 65 people died in the quake, which was the deadliest in Japan since at least 1983.
"I never had much, but what I had, I lost it all," said Fujiharu Hatsuzuka, walking around a pile of smoking ashes that used to be his wooden house in Aonae village on the Sea of Japan island of Okushiri.
The 63-year-old squid fisherman also lost his life savings of about $2,700 in the firestorm that raged after Monday night's quake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale.
But Hatsuzuka was more fortunate than some - at least he knew that his wife and two sons were alive and sheltered at a local school. Villagers who did not have that comfort wandered amid the ruins, yelling at buses in search of 72 people missing after the quake.
Police said 72 people were injured in the quake and resulting fires and tidal waves that hit as far away as South Korea and Russia. Kyodo News Service reported 80 dead and 167 missing.
On nearby Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, huge tidal waves smashed villages, buckled roads and sucked cars out to sea with some occupants thought to be still inside.
But Okushiri took the brunt of the quake, which matched a 7.8 quake in January that was the strongest to hit Japan in 15 years. That quake killed two people.
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa left campaigning for Sunday's parliamentary elections to survey the damage. He promised to do his best for the victims.
Forty-four people were killed on Okushiri, located off the west coast of Hokkaido and just 30 miles south of the epicenter. Twenty were killed on Hokkaido and one on the main island of Honshu.
It was the deadliest quake in Japan since at least 1983, when 104 people were killed after tidal waves hit the north.
The earthquake was centered 30 miles under the Sea of Japan and about 50 miles west of Hokkaido.
Japan's Meteorological Agency broadcast tsunami warnings within five minutes after the quake hit at 10:17 p.m. Monday, but many victims did not have time to reach higher ground.
Death and destruction came from landslides and collapsing buildings as well as 16-foot tidal waves and fires.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB