2 Strong Quakes Hit Japan...rains & mudslides to follow

Twin earthquakes kill 41 people in Japan, scores trapped in rubble
Published April 16, 2016
Associated Press
MASHIKI, Japan –  Army troops and other rescuers rushed Saturday to save scores of trapped residents after a pair of strong earthquakes in southwestern Japan killed at least 41 people, injured about 1,500 and left hundreds of thousands without electricity or water.
Rainfall was forecast to start pounding the area soon, threatening to further complicate the relief operation and set off more mudslides in isolated rural towns, where people were waiting to be rescued from collapsed homes.
Kumamoto prefectural official Riho Tajima said the death toll stood at 22 from the magnitude-7.3 quake that shook the Kumamoto region on the southwestern island of Kyushu early Saturday. On Thursday night, Kyushu was hit by a magnitude-6.5 quake that left 10 dead.

Japanese media reported that nearly 200,000 homes were without electricity, and that drinking water systems had also failed in the area. TV video showed people huddled in blankets, sitting or lying down shoulder-to-shoulder on the floors of evacuation centers. An estimated 400,000 households were without running water.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that 1,500 people had been injured in the quakes. Tajima said that 184 people were injured seriously, and that more than 91,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. More than 200 homes and other buildings were either destroyed or damaged, she said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed concern about secondary disasters as forecasters predicted rain and strong winds later in the day. With the soil already loosened by the quakes, rainfall can set off mudslides.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/16/twin-earthquakes-kill-41-people-in-japan-scores-trapped-in-rubble.html 

eddie wrote:Wow! That's a bad one. Hope the casualties are not too many more.

One of the good things about England: no major catastrophes like this happen to us.....yet.

I say yet, as who knows what climate change may bring one day?