The quake occurred almost exactly 11 years after the same region was hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear meltdown.
Published Mar. 16, 2022 2:48 PM EDT | Updated Mar. 17, 2022 11:54 AM EDT
An intense 7.4-magnitude earthquake shook northern Japan late Wednesday local time, killing four people and injuring more than 100 while triggering a tsunami alert for parts of the country's eastern shoreline and knocking out power to more than 2 million households.
The powerful quake, which was reported shortly after 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, just around midnight Thursday in Japan, struck about 39 miles below the sea, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The USGS pinpointed the epicenter of the quake to be located 35.4 miles (57 km) east of Namie, off the coast of Fukushima.
Authorities initially said two immediate aftershocks left numerous people hurt as emergency crews responded to multiple reports of injuries, fires and structural damage in Minamisoma and Fukushima, according to local news station NHK Fukushima.
But in an update Thursday morning, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, told reporters that four people died during the quake, including one man in his 60s killed after falling from the second floor of his house in Soma while trying to evacuate and a 70-year-old man who panicked and suffered a heart attack, according to Kyodo News. The Associated Press reported at least 100 injured, although NHK placed the number of injured at more than 225.
The quake shook large parts of eastern Japan, including Tokyo, where buildings swayed violently. Footage from NHK showed shards of windows scattered on the street near the main station and broken walls of a department store in Fukushima city.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake was felt in regions of Japan, including Tokyo, on March 16.
Videos posted to social media captured the moments when the quake struck, showing utility poles shaking along night-time streets, and furniture crashing to the ground, cabinet doors flying open and objects getting tossed around apartments as pictures and clocks rattled against the walls. In one video, water was splashing out of a fish tank in a 13th-floor apartment.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the government was assessing the extent of damage and promised to do its utmost for rescue and relief operations, according to AP, noting that the full impact won't be known for some time as authorities work to confirm all reports.
Daylight revealed new damages as residents began the task of cleaning up broken windows, dishes and appliances.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Mineyuki Otake, president of a hotel in Yabuki where some of its walls crumpled, told NHK.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for the region of as high as 3.28 feet (1 meter). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no longer a tsunami threat, although the JMA kept its low-risk advisory in place until Thursday morning local time. NHK reported waves of 7.87 inches (20 centimeters) in some places, and officials were calling on people in the affected areas to stay away from the coast.
Around 2.2 million homes across 14 prefectures, including Tokyo, experienced blackouts, and 1,800 households in Fukushima and Miyagi were still without power 24 hours later, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) Power Grid reported.
This latest earthquake comes 11 years to the month after a 9.1-magnitude earthquake created a massive tsunami that devastated the same region and triggered a catastrophic nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, spewing huge amounts of radiation.
Groceries and other products are scattered at a convenience store in Fukushima, northern Japan on March 16, 2022, following a powerful earthquake. (Kyodo News via AP)
The country’s Nuclear Regulation Authority told the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday that “deficiencies” were found at some of the nuclear facilities but that "there were no reports of issues giving rise to safety concerns at the (three) nuclear sites located in the region."
TEPCO, which also operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said workers on Thursday found some tanks holding treated radioactive water were out of alignment due to the rattling, and what appeared to be a steel beam fell from a roof of a reactor building, which has no fuel inside. Also, the IAEA said, the cooling system at the spent fuel pools at two of the reactor units temporarily stopped working but later resumed operation and cooling functions at the site were maintained.
The Daiichi site is in the process of being decommissioned and its six reactor units have been permanently shut down.
Officials said that at the other site, Fukushima Daini NPS, "no significant fluctuations in monitoring post have been confirmed."
There was no damage at the third site, the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
The earthquake also caused a Tohoku Shinkansen express train to partially derail between Fukushima and Shiroishiza stations, but none of the 96 passengers aboard were reported injured.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) upgraded the magnitude of the quake from the initial 7.3 to 7.4, with the USGS reporting that it was preceded by a 6.4-magnitude quake about 2 minutes earlier.
Japanese officials confirmed a total of 22 aftershocks measuring an intensity of 1 or more had struck off the coast of Fukushima and Miyagi, and the agency was urging residents in hard-hit areas to remain on alert for "a possible earthquake with a maximum intensity of 6 plus" for the next week, according to local news station NHK.
Japan sits on the boundary of several tectonic plates and experiences a fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
In the past century, according to the USGS, 33 earthquakes with magnitudes of 7 or greater have occurred within 155 miles of this latest event, including seven since the March 2011 disaster.
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