by A powerful earthquake struck western Japan on Monday, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuation orders, trapping people under collapsed buildings and disrupting electricity and mobile phone services in Ishikawa prefecture, the epicenter of the quake, Japanese authorities said. .
Initial reports suggested that the earthquake did not cause the large tsunami waves or deaths that were initially feared, but officials warned of the possibility that major aftershocks could occur over the next week, and particularly in the coming days.
The earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula at around 4:10 p.m. and had a magnitude of 7.6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. At least six people died in Ishikawa Prefecture as a result of the earthquake, police said. It was much weaker than the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan in 2011, triggering a tsunami that killed thousands of people and sparked a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said Monday’s earthquake had left at least six people trapped under rubble in Ishikawa, but more were feared trapped or injured. Officials in that city said they were overwhelmed by the number of people calling for help, and one fire station received more than 50 calls reporting collapsed buildings, NHK reported.
The Japan Meteorological Agency initially issued a major tsunami warning and said waves could reach up to five meters (or 16 feet) in the parts of the Noto Peninsula facing the Sea of Japan. They ordered residents to immediately move to higher ground.
But several hours later, the government downgraded the warning and said the largest expected wave height was three meters, about 10 feet. By Tuesday morning, it had once again downgraded the tsunami warning to a warning.
The largest waves were recorded just after the earthquake at Wajima Port, where they reached around four feet, public broadcaster NHK reported. North Korea also issued a tsunami warning, as did Russia, which issued one for parts of Sakhalin Island, which is near Japan’s northern Pacific coast. South Korea reported tsunami waves of up to 1.5 feet.
Japan’s meteorological agency said the earthquake had a very shallow depth, which tends to make earthquakes more dangerous. Initial reports from Ishikawa prefectural authorities suggested there had been no major damage to “important facilities,” but the fire department said it was still confirming damage to residential buildings and other structures.
The earthquake occurred while Japan is still dealing with the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from towns and farming villages around the plant after the 2011 earthquake, and some have not returned. Cleanup of the area around the Fukushima plant is still in an early phase, and last summer the government announced it would begin releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the ocean, alarming China and South Korea.
An official at Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency said that after Monday’s earthquake, there were no signs of anomalies at any radioactivity monitoring stations at the Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa, on Japan’s western coast.
The earthquake trapped people under collapsed buildings and also knocked out power to tens of thousands of people in Ishikawa Prefecture. Medical workers in the port city of Wajima were treating patients in a hospital parking lot, NHK reported.
Residents were warned that there was still a danger of landslides and building collapses due to aftershocks. The government said it had already recorded 19 earthquakes centered on the Noto Peninsula.
Hayashi, the chief cabinet secretary, said at a news conference that the governor of Ishikawa had requested that the Japan Self-Defense Forces be sent to the region and that all branches of the force were ready to help with rescue operations. .
Bullet trains were stopped and part of a highway was closed after the earthquake. Japanese airline ANA grounded four planes headed to airports in the affected region, and Japan Airlines canceled most flight service to Ishikawa and Niigata.
Due to the frequency of its earthquakes, over the past century Japan has made its buildings among the strongest in the world. They are able to withstand large earthquakes and continue functioning even immediately afterwards.
Through investments, government mandates, and an engineering culture perfectly adapted to seismic risk, Japan has managed to reduce the number of deaths even in devastating earthquakes.
An earthquake in Mino and Owari provinces in the late 19th century, and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which killed more than 140,000 people, spurred research into stronger buildings and the introduction of new construction standards. Over the following decades, each major earthquake in Japan prompted measures to further improve practices and regulations.
The report was contributed by Emma Bubola, bengali shashank, Hisako Ueno and Jin Yu Young.
