Power, Fuel Shortage Worsens as Wintry Weather Plagues Quake-hit Japan

While the world's attention has still been focused on the efforts to cool down a troubled nuclear power plant, the disaster-affected people are facing multiple woes as wintry weather plagues the quake-hit areas in northeast Japan.

In Onagawa of Miyagi Prefecture, 2,500 people stayed in a stadium for temporary shelter. With no water and electricity, they have to stick together to keep warm once it becomes dark.

"It is extremely cold at night, as the temperature falls down to minus 4 degrees Celsius," said Ren Haiping, a Chinese technical trainee working in Onagawa, a town where half of its 10,000 population are dead or missing.

Like Onagawa, shelters in all the quake-hit areas face acute shortages of water, power, gasoline and kerosene.

In Ofunato of Iwate Prefecture, Yotsuko Tanaka, 72, woke up at 4:00 AM. "It was too cold and I slept only three hours," Tanaka said to local media. "Homes have been washed away by tsunami. There is no place to return."

In the severely damaged coastal city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, a sign seeking doctors and nurses was posted on the door of an evacuation center. A large number of medical personnel are needed to cope with the increasing number of people who developed fever or other symptoms.

"Most of the people have already stayed in shelters for a week. If they continue to stay in the places for a long time, there is a possibility of an outbreak of infectious disease," said Masafumi Nishizawa, a doctor at Rikuzentakata said on TV.

As of Friday morning, there are about 280,000 people still living in shelters, the public broadcaster NHK said.

Damaged roads, airports and ports have been gradually repaired, with the Tohoku Expressway and the submerged Sendai Airport open to emergency vehicles, airplanes and helicopters.

The Akita Shinkansen service also resumed Friday between Morioka and Akita stations, providing four round-trips a day without reserved seating.

But delivery of relief goods contributed from around the nation to evacuees and survivors still remains difficult due to shortages of fuel and transport vehicles.

The Japanese government ordered Thursday night that 300 fuel tanks will be dispatched to deliver 2 million liters of gasoline and light oil to the northeast region every day to ease fuel crisis. Kerosene will also be sent to the evacuation centers for the use of keeping the people warm.

Reports said 21 people died after being transferred to evacuation centers in Fukushima Prefecture from a hospital in accordance with the evacuation directive issued due to trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. They included elderly patients, Kyodo News said.

Due to the fuel shortages, Miyagi prefecture has to send the evacuees to neighboring prefectures.

Akita Prefecture said it is going to receive 24,000 evacuees and has allocated 310 million yen (about US$4 million) from its reserve fund to do it.

A National Police Agency tally showed as of 9 a.m. Friday that the number of dead and unaccounted for exceeded 16,000 -- 6,405 deaths and 10,259 missing, however, the number is expected to soar.