Japan quake: Injury toll rises

2003-05-26 17:45

Tokyo - Dozens of people were injured when a powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale rocked northern Japan on Monday, causing tremors to rumble hundreds of kilometres away in Tokyo.

It was the strongest quake to hit Japan and its surrounding area in terms of magnitude since last March, when a 7.2 temblor struck the sea between Taiwan and the southern tip of the Okinawa chain, the Meteorological Agency said.

"The impact would have been much larger if its focus was not so deep," said Noritake Nishibe, the head of the agency's earthquake monitoring section.

The quake occurred at 18:24 and its focus was around 71km deep with the epicentre about 20km off the Pacific coast of Miyagi.

Police in Iwate, Miyagi and Akita prefectures said at least 49 people were injured and reported fires, landslides and rockfalls. The Kyodo news agency said 72 people were injured, five of them seriously.

One nuclear reactor in the Pacific seaside town of Onagawa, near the epicentre, was automatically shut down but there were no reports of damage. Other reactors were operating normally, the National Police Agency said.

An another tremor, registering 4.9 on the Richter scale, rocked the same region four hours later but there were no immediate reports of injuries or property damage.

Six people were temporarily trapped inside two halted lifts in Sendai, a major city in Miyagi prefecture, about 300km north of the capital, the police agency said.

"I was in a subway train just departing a station when it was jolted up with a big bang. I thought somebody jumped onto the track," Sendai city spokesperson Hideyuki Nakada told AFP by telephone.

"Then it kept on rolling violently for 30 seconds and I have never experienced such a thing," he added.

The government immediately set up an emergency headquarters to deal with the quake which, however, did not appear to have resulted in a major disaster.

Telephone lines to local authorities, emergency services and population in quake-affected areas remained jammed well into the night.

Landslides

Seven people were injured in landslides in Iwate prefecture to the north of Miyagi, the Kyodo news agency said.

Fires occurred in Sendai as well as at a power substation, a restaurant and nearby forest areas, the Jiji news agency said.

Television pictures broadcast by Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) showed a camera position overlooking Morioka, the main city of Iwate, shaking violently and footage from an NHK helicopter showed at least one house on fire in Sendai.

Bullet train services in northern Japan were halted, and all train services around Sendai and Morioka were stopped, said East Japan Railway spokesperson Yoshihiro Nakamura.

The main runway at Tokyo's Narita airport was closed for 30 minutes while officials checked for damage but none was found so flights resumed as normal, airport official Rumiko Oshi said.

Haneda airport for domestic services and Sendai airport were also temporarily closed but reopened after about half an hour.

Expressways and other toll roads near the quake region were also closed, NHK said.

Japan is regularly hit by earthquakes. Its Pacific coastal shelf is regarded as highly prone to quakes with the Pacific plate and the Philippine plate rubbing against each other.

"We assume that the earthquake occurred due to the sliding down of the Pacific plate," Nishibe said.

Japan's vulnerability to quakes was confirmed in 1995 when a tremor measuring 7.2 killed some 6 400 people, injured 40 000 and destroyed 248 000 buildings in and around the western Japan port of Kobe.

- AFX