. . . . 岩手・宮城内陸地震
Iwate Miyagi Nairiku Jishin
This was just in the news .....
They have upgraded the quake to 7.2, and depth of 8 meters only.
A lot of mountain slopes have crashed down !
First Jolt: at 8:43. Many aftershocks.
So far, at 13:00, two deaths are confirmed.
マグニチュード 7.0
2008年6月14日 8時43分ごろ
Strong earthquake in Japan, people injured
2 hours ago
TOKYO (AFP) —
A powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck northern Japan on Saturday, shattering windows from some buildings and injuring a number of people, officials and reports said.
The earthquake hit in Iwate prefecture, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of Tokyo, and was strong enough to rattle some buildings in the capital. An aftershock was felt less than an hour later.
"I was driving and my car suddenly started shaking. I saw telephone poles and buildings shaking violently. That's when I realised there was an earthquake," a disaster management official in Kurihara, a town in Miyagi prefecture near the epicentre, told public broadcaster NHK.
But one house crumbled in Ichinoseki city of Iwate prefecture, injuring one person, NHK said.
Elsewhere in Iwate, window panes broke at a child care centre and another building in Oshu city, injuring children and at least one teacher, NHK said.
But initial signs did not point to widespread damage. A television helicopter from NHK flew over some of the worst-hit areas, where there was no visible damage to farms and homes and traffic flowed as normal.
The meteorological agency did not issue a tsunami warning.
However, the US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cautioned that there was the possibility of local tsunamis "that can be destructive within a hundred kilometres of the earthquake epicentre."
Bullet trains in northern Japan were automatically shut down as a precaution.
The Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi prefecture was working as normal, but its operator Tohoku Electric was checking if there was any damage, NHK said.
An earthquake last year in central Japan caused a small radioactive leak from the world's largest nuclear plant at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, heightening public concern.
Japan endures some 20 percent of the world's powerful earthquakes. It has built an infrastructure intended to withstand tremors.
A new earthquake warning system kicked in for the latest quake, with public broadcaster NHK flashing an alert moments before it struck.
...afp.google.com/
Will keep you updated.
It is far away from my place, but our friend Uwe lives there in Morioka!
GABI
We just saw Morioka on TV.
It was only magnitude 4.something there and not much damage done.
. . . . . UPDATES in the English News !
Sunday Evening
9 dead, 7 still burried in landslides, 11 missing.
The damage to homes, other than the ones hit by landslides, is rather small compared to the strength of the quake.
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. . . UPDATES 日本語 . . .
© mainichi.jp
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© sankei.jp.msn.com
岩手県奥州市と宮城県栗原市
震度6強
岩手県
岩手県内陸南部 奥州市 奥州市衣川区
宮城県
宮城県北部 栗原市 栗原市一迫
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