HIROO (Japan), Sept 26: A series of strong quakes shook the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Friday, collapsing the roof of an airport control tower, setting fire to an oil refinery tank and driving over 40,000 people from their homes. Almost 500 people were injured.
Officials issued tidal wave warnings as Japan’s meteorological agency measured the initial quake at eight on the Richter scale — the strongest in nine years — and warned aftershocks might last 10 days.
“The tremor was so strong that I could not keep standing,” a man told public broadcaster NHK outside his home, its windows shattered by the quake.
“Everything was falling over in the house,” another man at a hospital said. “A shelf hit my wife on the back.”
Japan is one of the world’s most seismically active areas, with an earthquake occurring every five minutes.
The only death reported was that of a 61-year-old man struck by a car as he picked up broken beer bottles on the street. The NHK said 479 people were injured in the area, which is sparsely populated.
Police said two men fishing by a riverbank at the time of the quake were missing, and added that they might have been swept away by tidal waves.
The airport in the eastern town of Kushiro had to be closed for three hours after the ceiling of the control tower collapsed. Part of the ceiling of the passenger terminal also fell in, exposing the metal beams.
Elsewhere, roads and buildings cracked, roof tiles fell and gravestones tumbled. A storage tank at an oil refinery caught fire and the plant had to be closed.
Quake-generated waves measuring about one metre in height struck the eastern Hokkaido coast, washing away some empty cars, but no major wave damage was reported.
Officials estimated 41,000 people had left their homes in response to the tidal wave threat, but the warnings were lifted on Friday evening.
The focus of the first quake — felt in Tokyo, about 975kms to the south — was 42kms below the seabed in the Pacific Ocean, near the port of Erimo.
A second quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale jolted Hokkaido about an hour later, followed by another measuring 7.1.
The first quake struck at 4.50am (12.50am PST) while most people were sleeping. Many said they were shocked by its power.
Roads were closed and rail services halted in many areas after one person was injured when a passenger train derailed.
Officials at Hokkaido Electric Power Co were quoted by Kyodo as saying that 24,300 homes near Kushiro had lost power. The NHK said Hokkaido Electric’s Tomari nuclear power station was unaffected.
A fire broke out in a storage tank at an oil refinery in Tomakomai, a coastal city in southern Hokkaido, sending flames and black smoke spewing into the sky.—Reuters
