The Noto Peninsula earthquake claimed 241 lives, and Kawai-cho, where more than 200 houses are said to have burned to the ground, was home to a tourist attraction, the "morning market street. Lined with fresh local fish, vegetables, and traditional handicrafts such as Wajima-nuri chopsticks, the area was visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. But the fire that followed the earthquake left no trace of these products. Except for a few reinforced concrete buildings and steel frames that remained burned in places, several hundred meters as far as the eye could see had been reduced to a burnt field.