A droneflying over the secluded towns of Mashiki and Minamiaso, in the Kumamoto Prefecture on the southwestern island of Kyushu in Japan, provides footage of the nearly inaccessible aftermath of two major earthquakes that hit the island last week, according to the BBC.
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Kyushu Electric, which operates Japan’s only two operating reactors, both on the island on which the quakes struck, dropped 7.95%, as the disaster aggravated safety concerns. Nine people died in the first natural disaster, and 32 in the second.
Authorities said at least 44 people died and about 1,100 were injured in the quakes on Thursday and early Saturday.
The epicenter of Saturday’s quake was near the city of Kumamoto and measured at a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The U.S. military operates 24 Ospreys in the southernmost islands of Okinawa, where most of its Japan-based troops are stationed.
Two Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft were used in the airlift, in what was seen as a chance for the USA to demonstrate the usefulness of the aircraft, which can take off and land vertically.
“We are striving to improve living conditions for the people who have sought refuge”, he said.
“There are still missing people, so with the help of the USA forces, we would like for the operations to go into effect as quickly and smoothly as possible”, said Col. Masahiro Sugawara of the Joint Staff Council of Japan’s self-defense force. He, his wife and his 85-year-old mother fled their home after Saturday’s quake hit at 1.25am local time.
Around 62,700 households were without electricity, water supplies had been disrupted to more than 300,000 homes and some areas had no gas, said NHK.
The quakes were the most powerful to hit Japan since a huge one (magnitude 9.0) struck in 2011, killing thousands and causing a tsunami that triggered a third crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, attending a G20 event in Washington, said it was too soon to analyse the economic damage caused by the quake, but bank operations in Kumamoto were still functioning normally.
“So far we are OK”, he said of the auto plants.
The shutdown will begin on Monday at a factory in Kyushu and progress to other plants in Japan through to Friday.
The US military, which has about 50,000 troops in the country, announced it was to join relief efforts, and Toyota said it would suspend almost all of its vehicle production in Japan.
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Major Japanese companies reported manufacturing stoppages, among them Sony, Honda, and Toyota.
