The weather conditions and material damage made it very difficult for the rescuers to do their job. Dozens of people are still missing in central Japan on Thursday (January 4th) after a powerful New Year's Eve earthquake killed 78 people.

The 7.5-magnitude quake, felt as far away as Tokyo 300 km away, shook the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, a narrow strip of land that juts out about <> kilometres into the Sea of Japan, toppling buildings and devastating roads.

At least 330 people were injured by the quake and the hundreds of aftershocks that followed, some of them very strong. A tsunami also hit the coast, with waves of more than a metre sweeping away many boats on the quays or roads along the seaside.

See alsoIn Japan, the fight against earthquakes involves architecture

Risk of landslides

According to public broadcaster NHK, one person was swept away by the tsunami near Suzu, at the tip of the peninsula, and the coast guard was looking for him.

According to NHK, a group of researchers estimated that the tsunami hit the city of Suzu less than a minute after the quake, leaving little time to evacuate the seashore.

Nearly seventy-two hours have now passed since the disaster, a window considered crucial to finding survivors. Authorities in Ishikawa released the names of 51 people still missing on Thursday morning.

"The situation is very difficult but (...) I ask you to make every effort to save as many lives as possible by tonight," Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

While Ishikawa Prefecture reported 78 deaths, the death toll could rise further as hundreds of buildings were destroyed in the disaster, including in a huge fire in the city of Wajima.

The rain made the search even more difficult by several thousand Self-Defense Force personnel, firefighters and police from across Japan, and the meteorological service warned of the risk of landslides.

Homes without water or electricity

These conditions made it difficult to get food and supplies to the victims, including 300 people sheltering in a school in Suzu. The Self-Defense Forces had to use helicopters to reach the least accessible areas.

Some 29,000 households remained without power in Ishikawa, and more than 110,000 homes were without water in Ishikawa and two others.

Early Thursday in the central city of Nanao, police officers were regulating traffic, informing motorists that one of the main roads leading to the northern port of Wajima was reserved for emergency vehicles.

Nearby, a long line of cars waited for the opening of a petrol station where petrol was rationed at 16 litres per vehicle although there was no shortage for now, an employee told AFP.

"I think a lot of them are extremely cautious and just want to be prepared for any eventuality," added the employee, who did not want to give her name.

Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes in the world.

The Japanese archipelago is haunted by the memory of the terrible magnitude 9.0 earthquake followed by a giant tsunami in March 2011 on its northeastern coast, a disaster that left some 20,000 dead or missing.

The disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.

This time, the series of quakes caused only minor damage to nuclear power plants along the coast, according to their operators.

With AFP

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