New Year’s Day Quake in Japan Revives the Trauma of 2011 Triple Disasters 

A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
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New Year’s Day Quake in Japan Revives the Trauma of 2011 Triple Disasters 

A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)

The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year’s Day in central Japan did not spur massive tsunamis like those that scoured the Pacific coast in 2011, killing nearly 20,000 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The tsunamis that did roll in along the Sea of Japan, on Japan's western coast, were mostly just a few feet high, rather than waves up to 5 meters (15 feet) tall predicted in alerts issued just after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Monday afternoon.

But the alarms and evacuation orders, and the dozens of strong quakes that came before and after the main quake on Monday, summoned memories of the triple disasters nearly 13 years ago. ,

As of Wednesday morning, local officials said 62 people were confirmed killed in the quake that struck on the coast of the remote Noto peninsula, 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) northwest of Tokyo.

Searchers were combing through rubble, a task lent urgency by forecasts for heavy rain that could trigger more landslides and collapses, racing against the clock to find survivors. Some were buried in landslides or trapped in houses whose roofs collapsed. Firefighters were using power saws to access people trapped in a small, 7-floor apartment building that fell sideways off its foundation.

“Hardly any homes are standing. They're either partially or totally destroyed,” said Masuhiro Izumiya, the mayor of Suzu city, which suffered heavy damage.

Two days after the quake, a man watched silently, wiping his eyes with a towel, as rescuers pulled his wife's body from beneath their collapsed home.

The quake struck on the one day of the year that nearly all Japanese take off: The New Year holiday is the country’s biggest festival, when families gather to sit in heated “kotatsu” tables, eat “osechi” delicacies and rice cakes, and just take it easy.

The calm was vanquished by TV announcers who urgently and repeatedly warned people in areas that might be flooded to seek higher ground, without delay.

Tens of thousands of people living in areas near where the quake struck sought shelter in government buildings and schools as authorities warned against returning to buildings possibly weakened by dozens of strong aftershocks.

Others lined up patiently to get drinking water from tanker trucks sent in to help tide residents over until broken pipes could be fixed.

“It’s flattened (my house) so we can't get inside. So I'm here with my wife sleeping together in a huddle while talking to others and encouraging each other. That’s the situation now.” said Yasuo Kobatake, who was visiting his hometown in Suzu when quake occurred.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other officials sternly warned against posting misleading or “malicious” information online after some people posted videos of the gigantic 2011 tsunami as if it was from Monday’s quake.

The disaster was an inauspicious start for 2024. According to Asian astrology, it's a Dragon Year that usually would bring good luck and prosperity. So far, it's brought a quake on Monday and a fiery landing of a Japan Airlines plane in Tokyo on Tuesday after a Japan Airlines flight from the northern island of Hokkaido crashed into a smaller Japan Coast Guard aircraft on the runway. All 379 passengers and crew of the JAL plane escaped. Five people perished on the smaller plane, which had been preparing to deliver relief supplies for quake victims.

The holiday's celebrations turned somber: Kishida postponed plans for a ceremonial New Year visit to the Ise Shrine. Public visits to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for New Year greetings by the Imperial family were canceled as Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako conveyed their sympathies to victims of the disaster.

The damage is much smaller in scale than in 2011, but still catastrophic.

The Noto area is renowned for old, picturesque wooden-frame homes and shops, often with heavy tile roofs that experts say are most vulnerable to the kind of violent shaking seen in Monday's quake. Most, but not all, of Japan's modern buildings are built to stronger, quake-resistant specifications, usually using reinforced concrete that tends to hold up well.

Much of the damage from Monday's quake to more modern buildings appears to have resulted from landslides and subsidence, which severely damaged homes even 100 kilometers (60 miles) away in Kanazawa, the closest larger city.

Landslides and road collapses left some isolated communities cut off: Residents in Suzu used folding chairs, benches and other things to spell out SOS in a parking lot — much as some distressed quake and tsunami survivors did in 2011.

The 2011 triple disasters along Japan's northeastern coast began with a magnitude 9 earthquake offshore that was more than 125 times more powerful than this week's quake in terms of the total energy it released, according to an online calculating tool of the US Geological Survey. It unleashed tsunami with waves up to 40 meters (131 feet) high that pounded into the coast, across sea walls and up river valleys, wiping out entire communities in low-lying areas.

It also triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that led to massive evacuations along the coast due to worries over radiation escaping from the disabled plant that have kept thousands from moving back.

The operator of the nuclear power plant closest to the epicenter of Monday's quake, in Shika, said there were minor problems and damage, but nothing that would cause radiation leaks from the facility, where reactors were idled for safety checks.

Hokuriku Power apologized for quake-related power outages that affected 33,200 homes in the area — some of those who sought refuge said they were too cold without any heating due to the blackouts, with temperatures dipping near freezing overnight.

Further north, at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture, the world's largest atomic power plant by power capacity, the quake caused water to spill from fuel pools of two reactors. Its operator Tokyo Electric Power, which also is responsible for the wrecked Fukushima plant, said there was no damage or leaks.

TEPCO recently gained permission to restart the Niigata facility, which had been partially shut down at the time of the 2011 quake and has been undergoing safety improvements since that disaster, which did not affect it.



Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.

On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.

Nearly two years on from Hamas's unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for, said AFP.

Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.

Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in "Bibi" the man of the moment.

– 'Reshape the Middle East' –

For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran -- a fear shared by most Israelis.

Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu's argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws "a lot of public support" and that the prime minister has been "greatly strengthened".

Even the opposition has rallied behind him.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.

A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.

The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to "reshape the Middle East."

During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defenses.

Israel's then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted "the balance of power" and had "weakened" Iran.

"In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran)," said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

Since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.

"Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself -- not the one who reacts -- and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model," Charbit said.

"But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers."

– Silencing critics –

For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a "necessary war," according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialized in Israel at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.

"Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones," she added.

"It's very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad."

In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's military had reached unprecedented levels.

After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.

"There's more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran," explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing "the dirty work... for all of us."

The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.

But for Perelman, "Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has."