Photo/Illutration Evacuees make a bonfire in front of a convenience store on the cold morning of Jan. 2 in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture. (Yoshinori Doi)

Several residents in Ishikawa Prefecture spent their first night of 2024 battling frigid temperatures and waking up desperate for information and supplies.

After the magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck in the late afternoon of Jan. 1, residents huddled in evacuation shelters on the Noto Peninsula as the ground continued to rumble from aftershocks.

In the Mii district of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, temperatures fell to minus 1 degree on the morning of Jan. 2.

About 20 evacuees warmed themselves by a bonfire in front of a convenience store. Several puddles in front of the store were frozen.

Sweet potatoes roasted over the fire were shared, and bites of the toasty tubers brought smiles to the faces of the children there who were wrapped in blankets.

Everyone was helping each other.

When asked what they needed most, one evacuee said: “Information. When I see a car from Kanazawa, I grab the driver and ask (what is going on?)”

Others said they need relief supplies, particularly gasoline.

The lack of women’s toilets was also a problem.

They had built a portable one in an isolated area for privacy reasons.

One evacuee, however, said, “It’s just too cold.”

In Nanao, roads were cut off and several buildings had collapsed.

National Route 249, which leads to Nanao, had buckled and cracked in various locations, and cars were left stranded on the road on the evening of Jan. 1.

In one place, a 50-meter-long stretch of the road’s centerline had risen at least 30 centimeters before cracking.

About 30 vehicles were parked at a convenience store in Nanao, presumably driven by people fleeing from towns along the coast where tsunami warnings had been issued.

One man said he had left his wife’s family home in Nanao on Jan. 1 and was driving to Kanazawa on National Route 249 when the quake hit.

“The car shook so violently, and the road 10 meters in front of us suddenly became squishy, like tofu, and cracked. It was like something out of a movie,” he said.

His entire family was in the car. He parked on the side of the road and walked more than 30 minutes to buy food.

On the way, he saw collapsed buildings. The lights were out at convenience stores, but he could make out merchandise scattered about on the floor, he said.

He also saw a police station full of evacuees.

In Nanao, 50 to 60 evacuees, some carrying luggage with both hands and others wrapped in blankets, had gathered on Jan. 2 in the parking area of a roadside station called Michi-no-eki Nakajima Roman Toge.

They said they had been at the Besshodake rest area on the Noto Satoyama Kaido highway, about 5 kilometers north, when the quake struck.

The shaking cracked the surface of the highway in multple spots, causing it to cave in. 

So they stayed overnight in their cars and made the two-and-a-half-hour walk down the mountain through chilly winds in the morning to the roadside station.

Piles of shoveled snow remained at the corners of the parking lot.

A 57-year-old woman who lives in Tsubata in the prefecture said her sister was driving from Kanazawa to rescue her.

But information coming in about the extent of the damage said several roads have been made impassible by the quake.

“It’s going to take quite awhile,” the woman said wearily.

(This article was compiled from stories written by Yoshinori Doi and Hiroyuki Kojima.)

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