Railways, roads, homes hit hard during quake in Japan
Houses destroyed, sections of road collapsed. On Friday, the day after a powerful earthquake hit Kumamoto, I flew over the devastated area in a Yomiuri Shimbun helicopter and saw the scars left by the severe shaking
The earthquake registered upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Chuo Ward, Kumamoto. Roof tiles had slipped from a large area of the tower roof at Kumamoto Castle in the ward. Part of the castle’s stone wall had crumbled as if scooped out by the earthquake. Large rocks and gravel were scattered all over the ground.
On railway tracks near JR Kumamoto Station, a derailed six-car Shinkansen train remained halted. Some of the train cars were off balance.
On the way toward Mashiki, where the earthquake registered a maximum of 7 on the intensity scale, there were cracks in the surface of the Kyushu Expressway.
Part of one side had collapsed. In a residential area of Mashiki, I could see the scars from a blaze caused by the previous night’s earthquake. Ambulances and fire trucks drove among the burnt houses.
Roof tiles had slipped from many structures, and about 10 houses had totally collapsed. Firefighters were checking the inside of a destroyed house whose roof had split in two. Parts of the surrounding roads had sunk, and there was a huge crack in the ground at a park to which more than 10 people had apparently evacuated. I could see the dangers local residents had been exposed to by the earthquake.
