SENDAI, Japan – Landslides occurred at 48 locations in Kurihara, Japan, after last week’s earthquake, and quake lakes could form at 15 of these sites, the prefectural government announced Friday.

Sensors to monitor possible landslides were being installed at those sites in the prefecture hit hardest by the June 14 Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake, the prefectural government said. A field survey and analysis of aerial photos revealed landslides at 20 spots in national forests and 28 locations in prefectural forests. The landslides measured between 100 and 300 meters high and 50 and 100 meters wide.

In addition to 10 quake lakes already confirmed in the Yunokura Onsen district and other locations, such lakes could form at 15 other locations because “sediment shaken loose by the earthquake could flow into rivers and block them,” a representative of the Miyagi prefectural government’s forestry maintenance department said.

Eighteen of the 48 landslides are blocking a national highway and prefectural roads, cutting off some small communities. These areas were at risk of being engulfed by mud and dirt washed down by rain, the Miyagi prefectural government said.

Meanwhile, rescuers found a body Friday afternoon at a construction site in Kurihara, where two construction workers died and one remains missing, bringing the death toll from the earthquake to 12. Rescuers resumed searching for people missing in Kurihara on Friday morning, after steady rain that had been falling since Thursday afternoon stopped. Prefectural police and Ground Self-Defense Force personnel were clearing out debris and mud at the Komanoyu Onsen hot spring inn, where five people were killed and two people remain missing.

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(c) 2008, The Yomiuri Shimbun.

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AP-NY-06-20-08 1240EDT