WAJIMA, Ishikawa Pref.: The death toll from the disaster caused by last weekend’s heavy rain rose to eight in the northern part of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, on Tuesday.

Search operations continued after the end of the crucial 72-hour window since the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a heavy rain emergency warning for the northern part of the peninsula Saturday morning. In a disaster, survival rates tend to fall rapidly after the period.

More than 360 people were newly found to be isolated in areas to which access had been cut off. Work was underway to clear roads blocked due to landslides.

According to the prefectural government, the disaster left six people dead in the city of Wajima and one in the city of Suzu. Two people were missing, and five more remained unaccounted for.

One person was found in a search operation in the town of Otani in Suzu, but the person was later confirmed dead, according to local fire department and other sources. Police are working to identify whether the person was a 79-year-old woman who went missing in Otani.

Local authorities remained unable to contact three people, including a 14-year-old junior high school girl, after the Tsukada River flooded in the town of Futegawa in Wajima.

About 520 workers from police, fire authorities and the Self-Defense Forces searched the area intensively but were unable to find them. In Futegawa, some houses were washed away.

As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, 46 communities in Wajima and elsewhere were isolated, leaving at least 367 people stranded. Meanwhile, 621 people were evacuated.

About 2,900 households were without electricity supply, and some 5,200 households without running water.

About 40 volunteers entered Wajima, and they removed mud and carried out waste left by the disaster from inundated temporary housing built for victims whose homes were damaged by the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck the peninsula Jan. 1, prefectural officials said.

According to the Wajima board of education, all nine elementary schools and three junior high schools run by the city will be closed until Wednesday for reasons such as inundation and water supply failure.

JIJI Press