Strong Aftershocks Rattle Northern Japan

Strong aftershocks rolled through Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido early Saturday, but no injuries or damage were reported as residents set about sweeping up broken dishes and retrieving water from supply trucks a day after a major earthquake hit the area.

A 6-magnitude aftershock, which occurred at 5:38 a.m. deep beneath the seabed off Hokkaido’s southeastern coast, was among dozens that followed Friday’s magnitude-8 quake.

Although the temblors jarred residents and cut electricity and water for hours, there were no confirmed deaths caused by the quake.

By early Saturday, Hokkaido’s state government said 572 people had been hurt, including 43 with broken bones and other serious injuries.

Damage from Friday’s temblor and the aftershocks was relatively light, not only because it struck deep under the ocean but also because people in this quake-prone region were prepared. Water and power had been restored to hundreds of thousands of homes and cracked roads repaired hours after Friday’s early morning jolt.

But in this Hokkaido town of 16,000 about 560 miles northeast of Tokyo, about 60 percent of the community was still without running water. Chieko Takematsu and her two young daughters were among thousands of residents waiting beside a water supply truck to fill bags and bottles with water.

“We can’t use much water to cook and we can’t wash anything or shower. We’ve been recycling bath water to flush the toilet,” said the 39-year-old.

About 41,000 people were evacuated to shelters on Friday, but most had returned home by early Saturday, including some whose homes were deemed unstable, a Hokkaido police official said.

Two fishermen were still missing, and police suspected they may have been swept away by tsunami, or ocean waves generated by the quake.

It was too early to estimate the scale of the damage, but some industries were finding it hard to return to business as usual. In Tokachiko, a coastal town in southeastern Hokkaido, cold storage facilities were disabled and some boats were washed onshore by tsunami, endangering the local salmon and squid catch now at its peak, officials said.

Fishermen said they would probably have to wait a week for repairs.

Located along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude 8 quake can cause tremendous damage in populated areas.

Earlier this month, Tokyo marked the 80th anniversary of a magnitude 8.3 quake that devastated the city and neighboring Yokohama, killing at least 140,000 people. In 1995, a magnitude 7.2 temblor in Kobe killed more than 6,000 people.

Friday’s quake – centered in the Pacific about 60 miles off Hokkaido’s eastern shore – was the world’s strongest since an 8.4-magnitude temblor June 23, 2001. That quake, near the coast of Peru, killed 74 people, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Hokkaido is the northernmost and most sparsely populated of Japan’s major islands. A quake and tsunami on the western side of Hokkaido in 1993 killed 230 people.