Two powerful earthquakes, one of them measuring 8,0 on the Richter scale, rocked northern Japan on Friday, injuring about 480 people and forcing thousands more to evacuate their homes, officials and news reports said.
The bigger quake, the strongest to hit Japan in almost nine years, occurred at 4.50am (7.50pm GMT Thursday).
Its focus was located about 80km off the southeastern coast of Hokkaido island and 42km below sea-level, about 750km north of Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said.
In an accident indirectly related to the quake, a 61-year-old man was killed after being run over by a car as he cleaned up quake debris, Hokkaido prefectural police said.
At least 479 people were injured, mostly by falling furniture at home, public broadcaster NHK said. About 41 000 people evacuated their homes, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
A Hokkaido prefectural police spokesperson said that 314 people had been definitely confirmed injured at 5pm (8am GMT) but the total tally ”may gradually reach the reported figure”.
”I was awoken by the huge jolts,” said Kiyomitsu Kurosawa (62), a construction company worker in Makubetsu, about 100km northwest of the epicentre.
”Everything was a complete mess: piano, television set, furniture, everything tipped over or fell off the wall shelves. I’ve been here for 25 years but this is the worst earthquake I’ve ever experienced,” he said.
In a bizarre reversal, a dozen fishing boats were washed up on to the quayside by tidal waves while the receding waters left at least 15 cars floating in the bay in Hiroo, one of the towns closest to the epicentre.
A second quake measuring 7,0 occurred in the same place at 6.08am on Friday, the agency said, adding that at least 19 strong aftershocks had jolted the region, with more expected.
The earthquake was the largest to hit Japan since one measuring 8,1 on the Richter scale injured 436 in Hokkaido on October 4 1994.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered his sympathy to the injured and pledged the central government would ”take the utmost measures to deal with the earthquake”.
Reported damage to infrastructure was surprisingly light, such as cracked chimneys and ruptured roads, although a bridge over the Ikifunagawa River, northeast of Hiroo, collapsed completely.
One train derailed but stayed upright, slightly injuring one passenger, a Japan Railway Hokkaido spokesperson said.
A fire broke out at a 30 000kl crude oil storage tank owned by Idemitsu Kosan in the coastal city of Tomakomai, but no one was injured and the blaze was later put out, a company spokesperson said.
About 14 500 households lost power and traffic signals were dead in some areas.
Ground Self Defence Force (army) vehicles loaded with fresh water were sent to supply four towns, a spokesperson said.
Air traffic control at Hokkaido’s Kushiro airport was disabled after the ceilings of the control tower and the passenger lobby were damaged.
Yoshimitsu Okada, strategic planning director at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, said the damage was small relative to the quake’s intensity because of the distance from land and because it was strongest in underpopulated rural areas.
”This time, people’s homes were thrown into chaos but fortunately, walls did not fall and houses did not collapse much,”
he said.
”It was different from Kobe, where the quake was right underfoot.”
Japan’s deadliest quake in recent years struck the western Japanese city of Kobe on January 17 1995, measuring 7,3 on the Richter scale and killing 6 432 and injuring about 43 800.
Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries with thousands of tremors recorded every year. With the ”big one” statistically overdue, strict quake resistance building standards are imposed to minimise structural damage. — Sapa-AFP