More than 240 persons have been announced missing after a huge earthquake struck the west coast of Japan on New Year’s Day.
Local media reports say that the government has strengthened the number of soldiers posted to the disaster area to 4,600 to aid the emergency services.
Four days after the earthquakes, the clock is ticking in the search for survivors.
There have been dozens of reports that people remained under the collapsed houses.
The heaps of rubble, damaged roads, landslides and aftershocks keep hampering the efforts of rescue teams.
In Ishikawa Prefecture, the worst hit, about 700 people remain cut off from the outside world.
The report revealed that about 30,000 households had lost their power supply while 80,000 households lost their water supply.
The local authorities have said that around 33,000 people still have to hold out in hundreds of emergency shelters.
