A powerful magnitude-7.3 earthquake jolted Japan’s northeast coast off Fukushima late on Wednesday, 16 March, leaving two dead and 94 injured and reviving memories of a quake and tsunami that crippled the same region just over a decade earlier.
The quake was felt in Tokyo, about 275km away, where the shaking of buildings was long and pronounced. Hundreds of thousands of homes in the capital were plunged into darkness for an hour or more, although power was fully restored by the early hours of Thursday morning.
Authorities cancelled an earlier tsunami warning.
Just before midnight, the quake hit off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of 60km, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It sparked memories of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, a week after that disaster’s 11th anniversary.
There were no abnormalities at nuclear power plants, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. The 2011 disaster triggered a meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima, an incident Japan is still coming to grips with.
Separately, a Shinkansen bullet train derailed with about 100 people on board, although there were no reports of injuries.
Utility Tokyo Electric Power Company said that initially about 2 million households lost power on Wednesday, including 700,000 in the capital. Tohoku Electric Power said about 38,500 homes were still without power as of 7.40am local time on Thursday.
For more information, go to www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/japan-earthquake-fukushima-two-dead-injured-tsunami-warning-cancelled-2569286
