Tokyo (CNN) Yet another natural disaster has struck part of Japan, continuing a summer of chaos that has seen the country weather deadly floods, typhoons, earthquakes, landslides and heatwaves. 
 
 At least 9 people were killed in Thursday's earthquake, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Friday. 
 
 The government had previously said 16 people died, but Suga told reporters later that this figure was incorrect and officials had mistakenly also counted those who suffered heart attacks due to the quake. 
 
 Photo taken Sept. 6, 2018, from a Kyodo News airplane shows the site of a landslide in Atsuma, Hokkaido, northern Japan, triggered by an earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 6.7 that struck the region. 
 
 Search and rescue teams are still looking for 26 people missing in the western town of Atsuma in Hokkaido Prefecture. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that more than 22,000 people were involved in the rescue efforts, as the northern island still deals with the after effects of the magnitude-6.6 quake, which caused landslides that buried homes and other buildings. 
 
 Electricity was restored to around 1.4 million buildings as of Friday morning, Abe added, around half of all of those which initially lost power. 
 
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 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks to journalists following a strong earthquake, at his official residence in Tokyo Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018. A powerful earthquake has hit northern Japan near a... (Associated Press) 
 
 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks to journalists following a strong earthquake, at his official residence in Tokyo Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018. A powerful earthquake has hit northern Japan near a major city. (Yohei Fukai/Kyodo News via AP) (Associated Press) 
 
 TOKYO (AP) — A powerful earthquake hit wide areas on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thursday, triggering landslides as well as causing the loss of power at nearly all of 3 million households and a nuclear power plant to go on a backup generator. 
 
 A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck southern Hokkaido at 3:08 a.m. Thursday (18:08 GMT Wednesday) at the depth of 40 kilometers (24 miles), Japan's Meteorological Agency said. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.6. No tsunami warning was issued. 
 
 The quake's epicenter was east of the city of Tomakomai. It also struck Hokkaido's prefectural capital of Sapporo, with a population of 1.9 million. 
 
 The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said a man was found without vital signs in Tomakomai, and several people were reported missing in the nearby town of Atsuma. At least 20 other people were injured in nearby towns, though their conditions were not immediately known. 
 
 Footage on NHK national television showed the moment the quake struck Muroran, with its camera violently shaking and all city lights going out a moment later. In nearby Sapporo, a mudslide hit a road, leaving several cars half buried. 
 
 Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko told reporters that the extensive power outage was caused by an emergency shutdown of the main thermal power plant that supply half of the electricity to all of Hokkaido. 
 
 Utility officials are starting up hydro-power plants to help restart the main thermal plant, Seko said. Authorities are sending power-generator vehicles to hospitals so they can accept emergency patients when needed, he said. 
 
 In the town of Atsuma, a massive landslide occurred on the side of a mountain, crushing houses at lower grounds. 
 
 Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that the authorities have received hundreds of calls about people missing and buildings collapsing. Officials are doing their utmost for the search and rescue while they assess the extent of damage, he said. 
 
 The central government set up a crisis management taskforce at the prime minister's Office. 
 
 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a taskforce meeting that 4,000 self-defense troops are being deployed on Hokkaido to join search and rescue operations. The government will send 20,000 more to the affected sites, he said. 
 
 Three reactors at the Tomari nuclear plant were offline, but they are running on backup generators after losing external power because of the island-wide blackouts that also caused power loss at all 2.9 million households and disrupted traffic, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said. Spent fuel in storage pools was safely cooled on backup power that can last for a week, the agency said. 
 
 The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan destroyed both external and backup power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns. 
 
 The earthquake also affected telephone service and television broadcasting in Sapporo.
– A powerful earthquake on Hokkaido Island in Japan triggered landslides that buried a "large" number of homes, a Japanese broadcaster reports, per CNN. Several aftershocks—one as powerful as 5.4 magnitude—followed the main quake, according to reports. An 82-year-old man died after he fell down the stairs at his home, Channel NewsAsia reports. And authorities received hundreds of calls about missing people and damaged buildings in the aftermath, per the AP. Some 3 million households reportedly lost power. The magnitude 6.6 quake (as measured by the US Geological Survey), which lasted 30 seconds to a minute, was relatively shallow, and no tsunami warning was issued, according to reports. Officials warned that more quakes may occur and urged "residents to pay full attention to seismic activity and rainfall and not to go into dangerous places," per Channel NewsAsia.