Japan quake death toll 9, searchers dig through rubble

KURIHARA, Japan (Reuters) - Rescue workers searched on Sunday for 11 people still missing after a powerful earthquake rocked rural areas of northern Japan, killing at least nine and injuring more than 200.

Nearly 400 searchers dug through the remains of a remote hot spring resort that was swamped by a massive landslide, killing three people and leaving another four missing after the 7.2 magnitude quake on Saturday morning.

The quake collapsed mountainsides, buckled bridges and swept landslides across roads but casualties were limited by the sparse population in affected areas in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, around 300 km (190 miles) north of Tokyo.

However, there have been hundreds of aftershocks and officials warned there could be strong quakes to come.

"I don't know where we'll go, or what we will do now," said 80-year-old Naoshi Miura, who with his wife Kirino, 76, and their two dogs was airlifted by helicopter from their mountain home.

Rescue workers at the collapsed two-storey inn picked their way through debris on Sunday after carefully crossing a river of mud covered with makeshift wooden boards.

They have so far recovered the bodies of two women and a man from the debris, local officials said.

In other areas, thousands of troops, fire crews and other relief crews worked to clear narrow mountain roads, restore power and water and confirm the fate of other missing people.

"It's a very mountainous area and if the roads are cut, even if you call out the troops, you can't get in," said Masaaki Sakakibara, a military official in charge of coordinating rescue operations in Kurihara, near the quake epicenter.

"We are very lucky this time because the weather is good, so we can use helicopters. The roads here are very narrow and this limits access."

SCATTERED AND SMASHED

Nine people had been confirmed dead, and public broadcaster NHK said 234 were injured. About 300 people spent Saturday night in evacuation centers.

"There's no water and cooking is hard, so we are living on instant food," said 73-year-old Tokue Takahashi, who came to an evacuation centre to get water.

Many returned home on Sunday but about 135 people were expected to spend a second night in evacuation centers, local officials said.

As is often the case when natural disasters strike rural Japan, many of those affected were elderly, some living alone.

"If people live alone, it's a worry for their health," said Minoru Suzuki, a 77-year-old volunteer medical worker.

"Stress is a big problem."

Medical experts say steps must be made to prevent affected people from suffering mental problems.

"You have to avoid what happened in other places after the earthquakes like Kobe and Niigata -- the people who end up dying isolated in temporary housing," said Rimi Fuse, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating disaster victims.

Some factories in the area were damaged, cutting production at a Fujitsu semiconductor factory and a car plant.

But experts said the scope of the quake was far smaller than the one that hit China a month ago and the sparse population and Japan's more strict building codes had also limited damage.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

In October 2004, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Niigata region in northern Japan, killing 65 people and injuring more than 3,000. That was the deadliest quake since a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit the city of Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,400.

(Additional reporting by Hugh Lawson, Linda Sieg and Teruaki Ueno; Writing by Linda Sieg and Teruaki Ueno; Editing by Jerry Norton and Sanjeev Miglani)