A7.5 magnitude earthquake struck central
Japan on Monday afternoon, collapsing buildings, causing fires and triggering
tsunami alerts as far away as eastern Russia, prompting orders for residents to
evacuate affected coastal areas of Japan.
The earthquake left six people
dead in Ishikawa prefecture, and dozens have been injured in four other
prefectures, including Toyama and Niigata, Japanese public broadcaster NHK
reported, citing hospitals and local authorities.
The earthquake struck at 4:10
p.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) in the Noto Peninsula of
Ishikawa prefecture, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The Japan Meteorological Agency
immediately issued a tsunami warning along coastal regions of western Japan,
and the first waves were reported hitting the coast just over 10 minutes later.
Some of the first reports came
from the city of Wajima in Ishikawa prefecture, which saw tsunami waves of
around 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) around 4:21 p.m., according to NHK. No immediate
damage was reported. The tsunami warnings along portions of Japan’s
western coast were later removed.
The defense ministry dispatched
1,000 military personnel to help the rescue and recovery efforts, Defense
Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters earlier Monday.
Suzu city officials
in Ishikawa told CNN that buildings have been damaged and there were
reports of injuries. Police in the city said some people were trapped in
damaged houses, according to NHK.
Hospital officials in Suzu said
they received injured people, adding that some doctors were unable to make it
to work because of damaged roads, NHK reported.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a “major tsunami warning” – the first since 2011’s devastating earthquake – for Noto but later downgraded it to a “tsunami warning.”
Tsunami warnings were later
cancelled as the threat of further tsunami waves diminished, though advisories
for waves up to 1 meter (3 feet) continue.
Under Japan’s tsunami warning
system, waves expected less than 1 meter fall under “tsunami advisory,” while
those expected up to 3 meters fall under “tsunami warning” and waves expected
above 5 meters fall under “major tsunami warning.”
‘The whole room was shaking’
Footage from NHK showed cameras
shaking vigorously as waves slammed into the coastline when the quake hit
Ishikawa prefecture.
Houses were also rocked by the
earthquake, with images showing collapsed roofs and shaken foundations.
An eyewitness reported seeing
people “panicked” as the ground started shaking while he waited for a bus home
in western Japan.
“You can see all the snow from
the the electric wire goes down, and also (the snow) from the roof fell down
and all the cars are shaking. And so everybody was panicked at that time,”
Taiwanese tourist Johnny Wu told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Baldwin Chia, a
38-year-old tourist from Shanghai who was with a group of snowboarders when the
quake hit, told Reuters: “The whole room was shaking, the TV was shaking. I had
to keep everything on the table. … I did feel safe in my room, though. But
everything else was shaking.”
Some services of Japan’s
Shinkansen bullet trains were halted, and nearly 1,400 passengers were
stranded inside the immobile high-speed trains for more than 11 hours, NHK
reported, citing Japan Railways West.
Social media videos showed the
aftermath of the quake, with store aisles strewn with goods. One clip filmed
from inside a train showed signposts on the platform rocking intensely with the
tremor.
More than 32,500 homes in
Ishikawa prefecture were left without power following the quake, according to
the Hokuriku Electric Power Company.
Japan’s Kansai Electric Power
Company said in a statement on X that no abnormality had been reported at
nuclear plants in the area.
Yoshimasa Hayashi, the chief
cabinet secretary, said the power converter at the Shika nuclear power plant in
Ishikawa had been affected but with “no major results.” Japan’s Nuclear
Regulation Authority reported no problems were found with the reactors at the
power plant, NHK reported.
The powerful quake was followed
by a series of strong aftershocks, according to the USGS.
A 6.2 magnitude aftershock at a
depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) struck at 4:18 p.m. local time around 4
kilometers (2.4 miles) southwest of Anamizu, according to the USGS.
Some 58 kilometers (about 36
miles) away, tremors of 5.2 magnitude were recorded, and another 5.6 magnitude
aftershock was reported closer to the initial quake, according to the USGS.
USGS seismologist Jessica Turner
in the Golden, Colorado, office told CNN on Monday there have been 31
aftershocks since the quake. “Normally with quakes of this size, we can see
aftershocks for the next several days to a week, but (they) can go as long as
several months,” Turner said.
Japan’s weather agency warned
that powerful aftershocks could continue over the next three days to a week,
and cautioned of potential building collapses and landslides.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida said authorities were working to assess potential damage in affected
areas.
Tsunami waves reported
Waves of less than a meter were
reported in a number of other areas along Japan’s western coast, including
80-centimeter waves in Toyama city, 40-centimeter waves in Kashiwazaki and
Kanazawa port, and 20-centimeter waves in Tobishima island and Sado island.
The South Korean Meteorological
Administration said it was watching for possible sea level changes in the east
coast areas of Gangneung, Yang Yang, and Goseong of Gangwon Province and Pohang
City.
A tsunami threat was also
declared in the eastern Russian cities of Vladivostok and Nakhodka and the
island of Sakhalin – as the areas face the western coast of Japan –
Russian state media TASS reported. No evacuations have been reported so far.
CNN’s Junko Ogura, Jonny Hallam,
Sahar Akbarzai, Eric Cheung, Joe Sutton, and Taylor Ward contributed to this
report.
Source: CNN
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