SUZU, Ishikawa Prefecture—A 69-year-old woman stood in front of her quake-damaged wooden house in Suzu and stared down the road, waiting for rescue workers to return.

The magnitude-7.6 earthquake had heavily damaged the Shoin district of Suzu, causing the first floor of her house to collapse.

The woman’s sister was rescued from the rubble.

But firefighters could not pull out the sister’s husband, who is in his 70s. They checked his pulse and told the woman: “He is not moving and he is cold. We are sorry, but that’s all we can do today.”

They left to tend to others in the stricken seafront area.

Suzu Mayor Masuhiro Izumiya described the situation in the city as “catastrophic.”

“We have a feeling that about 1,000 houses have been completely destroyed,” he said at an online meeting of the Ishikawa prefectural government’s disaster response headquarters on the morning of Jan. 2.

According to prefectural government data, there were 5,857 households in Suzu city as of November.

Izumiya said although lifesaving efforts have been under way since the evening of Jan. 1, roads were seriously damaged throughout the city, isolating some communities.

“We can’t even confirm their safety. We are in a very difficult situation,” Izumiya said.

According to the infrastructure ministry’s disaster response headquarters, it is now extremely difficult to enter the northern Noto Peninsula area because the disaster has severed road connections to Wajima and Suzu.

Roads leading to Noto Airport, located in Wajima, are also cut off. And multiple cracks 10 centimeters deep and more than 10 meters long have been found on the runways.

Officials are considering transporting relief supplies and rescue team members via sea routes.

When the first shaking occurred shortly after 4 p.m. on Jan. 1, the Suzu woman ran outside without a second thought and her house collapsed.

Her younger sister and her husband, who were visiting for the New Year’s holidays, could not make it outside in time.

The sister, who is in her 60s, screamed: “It hurts! Help!”

The woman called the emergency 119 number and Suzu city hall, but all she heard was a ringing tone.

Two or three hours later, after it became dark, firefighters arrived at her home.

After lifting and cutting away wood from the collapsed home, they rescued the sister. She was bleeding from chest and had a sore hand, and was taken to a nearby elementary school.

But the sister’s husband could not be extracted from the debris. After the firefighters left, the woman called 119 at 5 a.m. and again at noon on Jan. 2.

She was told: “I understand how you feel. We have to go in order, so please wait.”

The woman mumbled in front of her house, “There is nothing that can be done about it, but… .”

RUNNING OUT OF FOOD

Yasuhiro Kano was in the living room of his house on Jan. 1 in the Horyu district of Suzu when he found himself screaming at his mother.

“At first I thought the shaking was the usual 4 or 5 on the Japanese seismic scale, but soon the vertical shaking came, and the house collapsed,” Kano, 50, said.

The earthquake reached a maximum 7 on the intensity scale.

Kano said he saw pieces of the house falling around his mother, 79, who was in another room.

“Get out!” he yelled at her.

She was able to evacuate before becoming trapped in the rubble, he said.

Kano’s two-story home was reduced to a concrete entrance and hallway. The falling roof had crushed the wooden living room where he had been when the shaking started.

Tsunami warnings then sounded around the town.

Kano and his family walked 15 minutes to an abandoned school site on higher ground, but the roof was broken.

They set up a tent, made a bonfire and managed to make it through the night.

On the following morning, residents in the area checked the damage. They found many telegraph poles leaning, and flattened houses lining the streets.

The tsunami had swept into the city, leaving behind seaweed on the roads and the smell of seawater in the air.

Mud covered the roads where cars were likely swept away.

Kano and his family moved to another shelter at a nearby school on the morning of Jan. 2. But he said they are gradually running out of food.

“My house has completely collapsed. I don’t know what will happen now. I don’t even know how long it will take to recover. I have nothing but anxiety,” he said.

(This article was compiled from stories by Akina Nishi and Hiroyuki Kojima.)