ANAMIZU, JAPAN – Japanese rescue workers struggled with heavy rain, blocked roads and aftershocks on Wednesday after a powerful earthquake killed at least 64 people and left tens of thousands without power or running water.

Sirens blared across Ishikawa Prefecture on the main island of Honshu as emergency vehicles tried to navigate roads blocked by rocks and fallen trees.

The Noto Peninsula was hit hardest by the magnitude 7.5 quake on January 1st. Port towns like Wajima and Suzu resembled war zones with muddy streets, destroyed houses and sunken boats.

“I can never go back there. It is now uninhabitable,” said 75-year-old Yoko Demura from a shelter in the city of Nanao, where she went after her home was reduced to rubble.

“It makes me sad and I will miss it,” she told AFP.

In a town in the Suzu area there are “almost no houses left,” said the town’s mayor, Masuhiro Izumiya.

“About 90 percent of the houses (in this city) are completely or almost completely destroyed… the situation is truly catastrophic,” he said, according to broadcaster TBS.

The regional government confirmed that 64 people were killed and more than 300 were injured, 20 seriously, but the number was expected to rise.

More than 31,800 people were in emergency shelters and at least 200 buildings had collapsed.

According to the local power company, around 32,800 households in Ishikawa Prefecture were still without power. Many cities had no running water.

“More than 40 hours have passed since the disaster. We have received a lot of information about people who need to be rescued and there are people waiting for help,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said after an emergency task force meeting.

The number of military personnel deployed to the area has doubled and more rescue dogs have also been deployed, he added.

Ample food and supplies have arrived in the region, but delivery to communities is being hampered, regional authorities said.

“Our lifelines have been cut off,” said Yuko Okuda, 30, from an evacuation center in the town of Anamizu, on the Suzu coast.

“Electricity, water and gas – everything. And since there are always aftershocks, our house could collapse at any time,” she told AFP.

Minor damage to nuclear power plants

The strong quake, measured at magnitude 7.6 by Japan’s weather bureau, was one of more than 400 to hit the region by Wednesday morning.

The main shock triggered waves at least 1.2 meters high in Wajima, and a number of smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere.

Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year, most of which cause no damage because of strict building regulations that have been in place for more than four decades.

Earthquakes have struck the Noto region with increasing strength and frequency over the past five years.

The high number of aftershocks is a result of the “complex” fault systems beneath the peninsula, Yoshihiro Ito from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University told AFP.

Japan was hit by a massive 9.0-magnitude underwater earthquake in 2011, triggering a tsunami that left about 18,500 people dead or missing.

It also flooded the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

Minor damage was reported at some nuclear power plants along the Sea of ​​Japan coast following Monday’s earthquake and aftershocks – including leaks of water used to cool nuclear fuel and a partial power shutdown at one plant.

The plant operators said there was no risk of damage to the environment or the nuclear power plants.