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International

Japan quake toll up to 16 as

searchers look under landslides

SAPPORO, Japan (AP) — Officials say 16 people died or are presumed dead after a powerful earthquake on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido unleashed scores of landslides, burying homes in avalanches of soil, rock and timber.

Searchers were digging through the mountains of debris Friday near a small mountain town hoping to find survivors, with 26 people still unaccounted for after the magnitude 6.7 quake struck early Thursday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said nearly half of the households have had their power restored after a day of island-wide blackouts.

The regional government said the bullet train to the provincial capital, Sapporo, was due to reopen later in the day. But damage to some parts of the city was severe, with houses atilt and roads crumbled or sunken.

Brazilian candidate in serious

condition after stabbing

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro, a leading presidential candidate whose heated rhetoric has electrified some voters and angered others in a deeply polarized Brazil, was stabbed at a campaign event Thursday and suffered serious abdominal injuries.

Police said the suspected attacker was in custody.

Dr. Luiz Henrique Borsato, who performed emergency surgery, said Thursday night that the right-wing candidate was in serious but stable condition and would remain in intensive care for at least seven days. The first round of Brazil’s presidential election is Oct. 7.

The doctor said the two-hour procedure stopped serious internal bleeding and repaired most of the damage from the knifing. The candidate will need further surgery within months for a part of his intestines that was temporarily fixed with a colostomy, the surgeon said.

“We can’t say when he will be able to leave hospital,” Borsato said. “But in the first hours after the surgery his recovery has been very satisfactory.”

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