Important Takeaways:

• Daylight reveals full destruction of Japan’s deadly 7.6 magnitude earthquake with homes toppled, temples destroyed and white smoke rising from charred remains of buildings as country reels from 150 quakes in the last 24 hours: Death toll ‘rises to 13’
• As daylight broke across Japan this morning the full destruction of the deadly 7.6 magnitude earthquake was laid bare showing collapsed homes, toppled temples and huge cracks in the middle of roads.
• White smoke continued to rise from the charred remains of buildings, as the country woke to the horrific aftermath after being hit with 150 quakes in less than 24 hours.
• The New Year’s Day disaster left at least 13 people dead in the Ishikawa Prefecture according to the Japan Times, with dozens more injured and unaccounted for as emergency workers plough through rubble to try and find survivors.
• One building, believed to be a seven-story block, was seen lying on its side while a temple in Suzu City is said to have been completely destroyed. In popular tourist site Wajima City, in the Ishikawa Prefecture at least 100 buildings have been destroyed.
• Shocking images emerging from the country show houses flattened to the ground, with abandoned cars being engulfed into huge crevices in the road.
• A major search and rescue operation continued into the early hours of Tuesday, with Japan’s Prime Minister saying that rescue efforts had been made ‘extremely difficult due to damage to roads’ in the Ishikawa prefecture, near the epicenter of the quake.
• As Japan was on high alert on Monday, waves of at least 1.2 meters (four feet) high hit the port of Wajima, and a series of smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere, including as far away as the northern island of Hokkaido.
• Dozens of aftershocks registering between 3.1 and 6 on the Richter scale rang out after the largest quake hit around 4pm local time (7am UK time), with Wajima City’s Fire Department in Ishikawa reporting it had received more than 30 reports of collapsed buildings, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.
• Elements of Japan’s military have been called up to aid in the rescue and evacuation efforts, Hayashi added, with a total of 51,000 told to abandon their homes.
• Japan’s meteorological agency said that the earthquake’s magnitude of 7.6 is the largest ever recorded in the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture.

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