Japan's New Year's Day was roiled by a powerful quake in the central part of the country as locals ran for their lives and huddled together in the cold on Monday, while houses flattened, leaving some trapped beneath the rubble in what marked a dire start to the year.
"I'm glad that I'm alive somehow," Sumie Higashi, an 85-year-old in Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, said as she recalled the tense moments following the magnitude-7.6 quake that hit the Noto Peninsula, which also triggered tsunami warnings along the Sea of Japan coast areas.
She was in her bedroom when she heard a loud noise and the second floor in the next room collapsed. Her car out front was crushed.
Higashi managed to escape from a back door and evacuated to higher ground when her relatives came to pick her up.
Kai Mawaki, a resident of Suzu, a city in Ishikawa Prefecture located on the tip of the Noto Peninsula, was worried about the tsunami waves and aftershocks and whether there would be enough food and bedding at the evacuation site.
The 26-year-old has sheltered in a nearby elementary school with about 20 family members.
While the Noto region was rocked by a quake that registered an upper 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale in May last year, Mawaki said that the latest temblor, which recorded a maximum 7, was "no comparison in size and duration."
A female official of the town of Noto, meanwhile, said she had witnessed collapsed houses on her way to her office, noting that she also saw "a car that had fallen into a river."
The Ishikawa prefectural office building in Kanazawa was crowded with residents who rushed to seek shelter, with a 63-year-old man saying he had yet to be in contact with relatives who live in Suzu.
"I packed my belongings and fled to the building by car," he said.
A shrine's torii gate in Kanazawa collapsed from the quake, and over 100 residents were seen nearby anxiously watching the ocean from higher ground.
At an elementary school in the city, where dozens evacuated, people were seen comforting acquaintances and expressing worries about their families.
"This is the first time I've experienced an earthquake like this," said a male resident in his 80s. "It was shaking for almost two minutes and was terrifying."
While Japan is a country prone to earthquakes, it was the first time a major tsunami warning has been issued since the M9.0 quake, and the ensuing tsunami devastated northeastern Japan in March 2011. A quake with a Japanese intensity of 7 was last observed in Hokkaido in 2018.
Some evacuees were wrapped in blankets outdoors at an Air Self-Defense Force base in Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture.
Also, in Wajima, multiple buildings collapsed near a famous morning marketplace and were engulfed in flames. The fire continued under the night sky, and residents said they heard explosions and saw black smoke.
A woman said she could still feel the heat from the fire, even though she was on the opposite shore of a river where the marketplace is located. "Despite the distance, it is still scary."
As quakes continued to rattle the region, she said evacuating was not easy. "This is awful, awful," she said.
In Niigata Prefecture, the ceiling of the Joetsumyoko Station creaked loudly as the area was also shaken by temblors, with screams heard from some customers, who crouched and huddled together as shop workers tried to calm them down.
In a shopping center in the adjacent Toyama Prefecture, customers fell to the ground as the floors undulated beneath them.
"Please stay away from the lights as they may fall," a man yelled.
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Emperor's New Year greeting event canceled due to quake
M7.6 quake rocks central Japan, killing 4, triggering tsunami
