Death toll rises, flights resume, power back in Japan quake

SAPPORO, Japan – Japanese rescue workers and troops are searching for the missing for a third straight day in a northern hamlet buried by landslides from a powerful earthquake.

The Hokkaido government said Saturday that 30 people are dead or presumed dead and nine remain missing. Electricity has been restored to nearly all households and international flights resumed at Hokkaido’s main airport.

The magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck about 3 a.m. on Thursday knocked out power to the entire island of 5.4 million people, swamped parts of a neighbourhood in the main city of Sapporo in deep mud and triggered destructive landslides.

Most of the victims are in the town of Atsuma, where landslides crushed and buried houses at the foot of steep forested hills that overlook rice fields.