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Powerful Quake Injures 230 in North Japan

Posted on: Thursday, 25 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

A magnitude 8.0 earthquake rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido early Friday, injuring more than 230 people, knocking out power, derailing a train and touching off an industrial fire.

There were no immediate reports of deaths directly caused by the quake in the hours following the temblor that forced the evacuation of some 41,000 people and left some 16,000 homes blacked out.

The government has warned residents to avoid coastal areas due to the possibility of tsunami, or ocean waves caused by seismic activity. The meteorological agency said tsunami as high as 3 feet hit the city of Kushiro, about 510 miles north of Tokyo. There were no reports of damage.

The quake struck at 4:50 a.m., cracking roads, capsizing fishing boats and causing the roof of a local airport to partially cave in. The temblor, centered in the Pacific Ocean about 60 miles off Hokkaido's eastern shore, had a magnitude of 8, Japan's Central Meteorological Agency said.

An earthquake of that magnitude is capable of causing tremendous damage. The meteorological agency said the earthquake was centered 36 miles under the seabed.

An aftershock of magnitude 7 followed shortly after 6 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey said from Golden, Colo. Another aftershock was reported at 8 a.m. but its magnitude was not immediately known.

Television footage showed an office where books were knocked off shelves, and desks and computers swayed back and forth as the quake hit. Merchandise fell off store shelves and people sought shelter in schools.

"We are now trying to collect information on the extent of the damage," local official Sadayuki Kano said. "There are no reports of other major damage."

Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported that most of the injuries were caused by falling shelves and other toppled objects. One 70-year-old woman suffered a broken leg while trying to leave her house through a window, it said.

A fire started at an industrial plant in the city of Tomakomai, but no workers were reported injured, said Hokkaido prefectural police official Kuniyoshi Omori.

NHK showed giant flames and black plumes of smoke pouring from the site, which police said belonged to Idemitsu Co. Streams of water were aimed at the flames.

Hiroaki Tanaka, a Kushiro fire department official, said 50 people were treated there for bruises and broken bones. Hokkaido government official Hiroyuki Nakao said 31 people were injured, two of them seriously, in towns outside Kushiro.

NHK said a man cleaning up broken glass in a street was hit by an oncoming car and died, but there were no other immediate reports of deaths.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. It sits atop four tectonic plates, slabs that move across the earth's surface.

Tokyo is particularly vulnerable. A quake and subsequent fire in 1923 killed more than 140,000 people in the capital area, and experts believe Tokyo is overdue for another major jolt.

In January 1995, a magnitude 7.2 temblor in Kobe killed more than 6,000 people.

Thursday's quake struck in the Pacific Ocean, about 65 miles south-southwest of Kushiro and 495 miles north-northeast of Tokyo, said John Minsch, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist. The quake was shallow.

"That makes it more likely to be a tsunami, and there's most likely to be a great amount of damage," Minsch said.

Geophysicist Doug Given in Pasadena, Calif., said the region is "part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the zone of very large earthquakes and volcanoes that rings the Pacific Rim."

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