Earthquake hits off Fukushima coast
Print Edition
A POWERFUL earthquake rocked northern Japan early yesterday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.
The magnitude 7.4 earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, sent thousands of residents fleeing for higher ground as dawn broke along the northeast coast.
There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries hours after the quake hit at 5:59am. It was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 kilometers, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
A wave of up to 1.4 meters high was recorded at Sendai, about 70 kilometers north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said.
Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbors as tsunami warnings wailed after alerts of waves of up to 3 meters were issued.
Aerial footage showed tsunami waves flowing up rivers in some areas, and some fishing boats were overturned in the port of Higashi-Matsushima.
All Japan’s nuclear power plants in the area have been shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing reactors to melt down and spew radiation into the air, soil and sea.
The cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant was initially halted yesterday, said a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, but was restarted soon after.
Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Nuclear plants need cooling systems operating even when in shutdown.
Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported no irregularities at the Tokai Daini plant in Ibaraki prefecture.
Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto said there had been no reports of significant injuries.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of earthquakes over magnitude 6.
The 2011 quake was magnitude 9, the strongest recorded in Japan to date. The tsunami it generated knocked out the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
Systems have been updated since the disaster to spread warnings more quickly, said Tsunetaka Omine, head of disaster management in Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture.
Previously, there were complicated directions on where to evacuate. “But now, we basically just tell people to head away from the sea, to the highest possible ground,” Omine said.
Authorities now also send tsunami warnings to mobile phones and broadcast on local radio.
In the coastal city of Ofunato, teacher Kathy Krauth, who is with a dozen international high school students on a study tour, said the shaking began seconds after an alarm on her phone went off.
“I felt like the lessons of 3-11 were really taken to heart,” said Krauth, who teaches a class on the March 2011 disaster and its aftermath. “The feeling was, we just don’t know, but we’re going to be as cautious as we can.”
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