Japan earthquake death toll rises to 213

The Japanese government on January 11 designated the powerful earthquake that rocked Ishikawa Prefecture and other parts of central Japan on New Year's Day as a "disaster of extreme severity," boosting subsidies for reconstruction work in affected communities.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government aims to expand its financial support for local authorities to implement measures such as the speedy reconstruction of roads and farmland, following the magnitude-7.6 temblor that left 213 people dead and 52 unaccounted for, Kyodo reports.

Improving the living conditions of the victims and addressing their health needs have become an urgent task.

The death toll includes eight people who are believed to have died due to the deterioration of their health following the quake, in some cases because of stress associated with evacuation.

In a related move, the Ishikawa prefectural government on Thursday launched a body to implement measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in evacuation centres.

According to the health ministry, as of Tuesday around 70 cases of respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza had been reported and around 40 of gastrointestinal illnesses including norovirus infections.

Over 25,000 people remained in nearly 400 evacuation centres in Ishikawa Prefecture as of Wednesday afternoon, following the Jan. 1 quake that registered a maximum 7 on the country's seismic intensity scale.

Local authorities are speeding up efforts to move evacuees to more comfortable accommodation such as hotels and Japanese-style ryokan inns, with electricity and water supplies still cut in some areas amid cold weather.

Eight such facilities had accepted 266 evacuees so far, the prefectural government said.

Over 3,100 residents were still cut off due to severed roads mostly in Wajima in the prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, while around 59,000 households in cities including Wajima and Suzu had no water supply, according to the prefectural government.