Another earthquake jolts Japan

TOKYO:

A powerful aftershock rocked northeast Japan on Thursday and a tsunami warning was issued for the coast devastated by last month’s massive quake and tsunami that crippled a nuclear power plant.

The warning was later lifted and no tsunami was reported. No damage from the quake, measured at magnitude 7.4 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, was detected at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said.

Workers struggling to bring the plant under control were evacuated soon after the aftershock struck, shortly before midnight.

Toru Hanai, a Reuters photographer in Oshu, Iwate prefecture, near the epicentre of Thursday’s aftershock, said his hotel lost power and a water pipe burst. “Everything fell. My room is a complete mess and power is widely out in this area,” he said.

In the capital, Tokyo, buildings also shook. “It started out as nothing much, then the building started swaying quite strongly,” a Reuters witness said.

As of 1630 GMT seven people were reported injured, two of them seriously, a spokesman for the National Police Agency said.

A Daiichi nuclear plant spokesman told a press conference that there was “no information immediately indicating any abnormality at Fukushima Daiichi plant.”

Footage from broadcaster NHK showed that power was off in parts of Sendai, a regional commercial hub shaken by the March 11 quake.

The broadcaster said gas and water leaks were being reported in some areas of the city.

Jiji Press news agency said that shortly after midnight there were five fires and 13 gas leaks in Sendai city, according to the Miyagi prefectural office.

In Iwate prefecture, local authorities ordered some 500 households to evacuate, NHK said. The broadcaster also reported three fires in Iwate and Miyage prefectures.

An AFP photographer in Kitakami city in Iwate reported that power had gone off following Thursday’s quake.

The quake had a depth of 49 kilometres, the USGS said. Although the epicentre was 330 kilometres from Tokyo, it shook buildings in the Japanese capital.

A Meteorological Agency official told a televised news conference: “We have determined this was an aftershock of the (March 11) earthquake.”

No irregularities have been detected at Japan Atomic Power Co’s nuclear power plant in Ibaraki, which was shut down after the March 11 earthquake and was hit by another strong earthquake, Japan’s HK television said. The plant is located south of Fukushima.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2011.