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Strong Quake Injures Hundreds in Japan

Posted on: Friday, 26 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

A magnitude 8 quake rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido early Friday, injuring hundreds, cutting off electricity and water to thousands, igniting a spectacular oil-tank blaze and collapsing part of an airport roof.

The quake was the largest anywhere in the world this year, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Still, no deaths were immediately reported - a fact that experts attributed to sturdy Japanese buildings and the quake's location 26 miles below the ocean floor.

The quake forced the evacuation of 41,000 people and left some 16,000 homes blacked out. Warnings of tsunami, or ocean waves, were briefly issued as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The quake, which struck at 4:50 a.m., cracked roads, capsized fishing boats and caved in part of the roof of the airport in Obihiro, a city of 200,000.

The temblor, centered in the Pacific about 60 miles off Hokkaido's eastern shore, was followed by several strong aftershocks and small tsunami, ocean waves.

The government warned residents to avoid coastal areas, but the highest waves recorded were only about four feet.

Hokkaido government official Hideki Domon said 323 people were confirmed injured as of 4 p.m., about 11 hours after the quake. Police said 22 were seriously hurt, mostly with broken bones.

Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, put the injury toll at nearly 400.

Kushiro, 560 miles northeast of Tokyo, was believed to be the hardest hit by the powerful quake.

"The shaking went on and on," said Fumiko Okuse, who owns a liquor store with her husband in Kushiro. "Everything was thrown out of the refrigerators and all over the floor. Juice, beer, everything."

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.

"It shook hard and long and I was very frightened," said Eri Takizawa, a city official in Kushiro. "We have small quakes here from time to time, but this was completely different."

Black plumes of smoke and flames leapt from an oil tank in the city of Tomakomai. The fire was contained within three hours and no injuries were reported.

Police said one person was injured when a local train carrying about 39 passengers derailed.

Though not listed as a quake-caused fatality, a 61-year-old man cleaning up broken beer bottles on a street immediately after the quake was struck by an oncoming car and died, Hokkaido police said.

A 58-year-old man also died aboard his fishing boat while trying to sail it to calm waters, but local officials said his death did not appear to have been caused by the quake.

Most of the injured escaped with minor bruises and cuts caused by glass from shattered windows and objects falling off of shelves.

A 70-year-old woman in this Hokkaido city, just west of Kushiro, broke her leg trying to crawl out a window.

The quake had a magnitude of 8, according to Japan's Central Meteorological Agency. It was followed by an aftershock of magnitude 7.

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.

This month, Japan marked the 80th anniversary of a magnitude 8.3 quake that devastated Tokyo and neighboring Yokohama, killing at least 140,000 people.

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

Hokkaido is the northernmost and most sparsely populated of Japan's major islands. Sapporo, which hosted the 1972 Olympics, is the prefecture's capital.

A quake and tsunami on the western side of Hokkaido killed 230 people in July 1993, most on the nearby isle of Okushiri.

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