A major earthquake that hit the Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day damaged hospitals tasked with providing medical care in the region, limiting their ability to conduct surgeries or accept inpatients.
In hospitals in areas severely affected by the quake, testing equipment and pipes were destroyed and some have not been able to resume surgeries and other medical services.
Meanwhile, some hospitals were able to continue offering medical care, as damage to their buildings was minimized with seismic isolation — a construction method of uncoupling a structure from its foundation to prevent seismic tremors from being transmitted to the building.