Japan’s New Year’s Day earthquake’s death toll has hopped to 161 from 128 overnight, authorities said on Monday.
The number of people unaccounted for fell to 103 from 195, according to authorities in the central Ishikawa region, which was hit by the 7.5-magnitude quake.
The shock waves tumbled buildings, triggered tsunami waves over a metre high, and sparked a major fire.
Thousands of rescuers have been recruited in from all over Japan, their work complicated by roads being cut off by the quake and an estimated 1,000 landslides.
In the last two days, the region has been blanketed in snow, making the operation harder still.
Japan sees hundreds of earthquakes every year, though most cause no damage because of strict building codes in place for more than four decades.
But many structures are older, especially in rapidly ageing communities in rural areas like Noto.
The country is haunted by the monster quake of 2011 that triggered a tsunami, left around 18,500 people dead or missing and caused a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima plant.