Tokyo Electric Power Co. said more than 2 million buildings, including around 700,000 in Tokyo, lost power. No irregularities have been found at its Dai-ni nuclear power plant in Fukushima, while the Dai-ichi plant is still being checked, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered ministries to gather information on the quake
TOKYO:
Tens of thousands of Japanese households remained without power on Thursday morning after a magnitude 7.4 quake struck shortly before midnight, throwing a swathe of northeastern Japan into darkness, severing key transportation links and killing four.
Companies including Toyota Motor Corp and chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp raced to assess the impact, with any supply chain disruption likely to add pressure to strained global output of smartphones, electronics and automobiles.
The temblor revived memories of Japan’s biggest quake, of magnitude 9.1, which struck on March 11, 2011 in the same area and which includes Fukushima prefecture and a nuclear power plant crippled by a tsunami and meltdown. It left a Shinkansen bullet train service indefinitely suspended, and at least one major highway to the region closed for safety checks.
“This one felt different (to the 2011 quake), it was huge. I had to hang on to something to stay upright,” said Aoi Hoshino, who owns a bar in Fukushima and had customers when the quake struck.
One of her customers shrugged off the initial tremors, but when the biggest one hit he stood up and shouted, “This is a big one!” she recalled.
The damage was minimal save a few framed pictures and cups that fell, thanks to rails Hoshino had added to shelves to stop bottles from falling in the event of an earthquake.
“For a while my hands wouldn’t stop shaking,” she said.
Parts of building facades tumbled into streets in some areas. Television footage showed a steep tiled roof crumpled over a parked, crushed car and workers examining cracked highways.
About 300 km (186 miles) south of Fukushima, areas of the capital Tokyo lost power immediately after the quake, though most regained it within three hours.
But some 5,775 households serviced by Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc (9506.T) in the northeast remained without electricity as of noon local time (0300 GMT) on Thursday, though the firm said it expected most will have supply restored later in the day.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said four people had died and that the government would be on high alert for the possibility of further strong tremors over the next two to three days.
At least 107 people were reported injured, several seriously, with 4,300 households also still without water by mid-morning. Residents of one Fukushima city formed a long queue to fill up plastic tanks with water for use at home.
Renesas, a major supplier of automotive chips, said it had suspended production at two semiconductor plants and partially stopped output at a third.
Among them is its Naka plant in Ibaraki prefecture just north of Tokyo, which supplies semiconductors to auto companies worldwide that have already had to curb output because of chip shortages resulting from COVID-19-related disruption.
The quake, initially measured at magnitude 7.3 but later revised to 7.4 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, hit at 11:36 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) just off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of 60 kilometres.
The 29 km deep 2011 quake and tsunami off Fukushima – commemorated across the country less than a week ago – left some 18,000 dead.
A tsunami warning was issued but cancelled early on Thursday morning. Some areas reported a rise in the sea level but no serious damage was immediately reported.
The 2011 disaster also set off meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. No abnormalities were reported at any nuclear power plants after the latest quake, though authorities earlier said a fire alarm had been triggered at a turbine building at the crippled plant.
Manufacturers said they were trying to gauge the potential damage to their facilities in the region.
Toyota cancelled the day shift at two factories after workers evacuated during their evening shift on Wednesday. The automaker said it will decide on Thursday’s evening shift later.
To cover the area affected by the Shinkansen outage, ANA Holdings Inc and Japan Airlines Co Ltd added extra flights to northern cities. There were no forecasts of when regular rail service might be restored.
The quake, which also shook buildings and disrupted power in parts of Tokyo, struck around 11:36 pm local time, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Kyodo News said “many” were injured in Fukushima, citing the local fire department, although the full scale of damages and injuries was still unclear.
The affected area was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that killed almost 20,000 people and triggered a nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
No irregularities have been found at its Dai-ni nuclear power plant in Fukushima, while the Dai-ichi plant is still being checked, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered ministries to gather information on the quake.
The intensity of the shaking was estimated at an upper 6 on Japan’s shindo scale of 7 in parts of Miyagi prefecture, public broadcaster NHK said. A 1-meter tsunami warning was issued for northern Japan, it said.
Residents in some towns in Miyagi prefecture were told to evacuate, NHK said.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said more than 2 million buildings, including around 700,000 in Tokyo, lost power. It’s also checking for any irregularities at its facilities, including its Dai-ichi and Dai-ni nuclear power plants in Fukushima, it said.
Eneos Holdings Inc. said operations at its oil-fired Negishi plant were halted, while East Japan Railway Co. said some public transportation services were disrupted.
The 2011 disaster led to the shutdown of all of Japan’s nuclear plants, forcing the country to rely on other sources of energy such as coal and natural gas.
Agencies