Woman, 80, pulled from rubble in Japan 72 hours after earthquake kills 94

Woman survives 72 hours under rubble after 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits Noto peninsula

An 80-year-old woman who was trapped under rubble for more than 72 hours was pulled out by rescuers after a powerful earthquake rocked Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture.

Firefighters from Osaka prefecture were able to assess the presence of a person and then found the woman under the rubble of a two-storey house, officials from the fire department said, reported The Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

A video recorded by the fire department officials showed workers motivating her by telling her that she was “almost there” and she needed to “hang in there” in the local Kansai dialect. The rescue operation was held in Wajima city in Japan.

She was also seen responsive towards the efforts made by the firefighters and answering their calls in the video.

After she was pulled out of her partially collapsed home at 4.28pm local time, the woman was wrapped in a blanket, helped on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital, the report added.

She was confirmed to be in a stable condition after her rescue, officials from the Osaka Municipal Fire Department said.

According to the timing shared by the local officials, she survived 72 hours and 18 minutes after the 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit the Noto peninsula.

The first 72 hours of rescue operations are especially critical, experts say, because the prospects for survival greatly diminish after that.

A total of 92 people have died after the massive earthquake shook Japan’s western coastline on New Year’s Day.

At least 51 people still remain unaccounted for in Ishikawa prefecture, which was struck by a powerful 7.6 magnitude quake, destroying houses and triggering tsunami waves that crashed into northern and western coastlines.

The sandy coastline in western Japan shifted by up to 250 metres (820 feet) seaward in some places, according to the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo.

Thousands of Japanese troops have joined the effort to reach the hardest-hit spots on the Noto Peninsula, the centre of the quake, connected by a narrow land strip to the rest of the main island of Honshu.

Experts warned of disease and even death at the evacuation centres that now house about 34,000 people who lost their homes, many of them older.