Injury toll rises in Japan quake
Sunday, March 20, 2005 Posted: 4:44 PM EST (2144 GMT)
 |  Rescuers evacuate an injured woman on Genkai island. |
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 A magnitude 7 quake centered off Kyushu kills one person and injures at least 250.
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TOKYO,
Japan (CNN) -- A magnitude 7.0 earthquake centered off the western
coast of Japan's island of Kyushu has killed one person, injured at
least 500 others and destroyed many homes, officials say.
The
quake hit at 10:53 a.m. local time Sunday (0153 GMT) and was centered
25 miles (40 km) northwest of Fukuoka city at an unusually shallow
depth of 5.5 miles (9 km) below the ocean floor, the Japanese
Meteorological Agency said.
The agency said 85 aftershocks were
recorded as of 9 p.m. Sunday and that an aftershock with a maximum
magnitude of 6 was possible.
Two women are in critical condition
in Kyushu's main city of Fukuoka, while about 15 people have serious
injuries, Fukuoka police said.
The hardest hit area appeared to
be the small island of Genkai, where about 65 homes were destroyed by
landslides, media reports said.
About 500 of the island's 700 residents were evacuated, reports said.
Kyodo
news agency quoted the meteorological agency as saying the quake was
the strongest to hit Kyushu since May 1997 and the first one measuring
more than magnitude 6 since 1898.
Video from Fukuoka prefecture,
on the west coast of Kyushu, showed a few cracked sidewalks and parking
lots, but no widespread damage.
A 75-year-old woman died after
a wall collapsed in her home, Fukuoka authorities said. At least 400
people were being treated at hospitals for injuries related to the
quake, television network NHK reported.
Power and water service to the affected areas has mostly been restored, officials said.
Authorities initially warned of a tsunami but later canceled the alert, The Associated Press reported.
"There
may be some disturbance of the ocean's surface, but we aren't worried
about tsunami damage," said Masahiro Yamamoto of the Meteorological
Agency. He predicted strong aftershocks up to magnitude-6 would
continue.
On December 26, a magnitude 9.0 quake triggered a
massive tsunami that devastated Asian and African coastlines in a dozen
nations, killing at least 174,000 people.
Sunday's quake touched
off landslides and leveled homes on Genkai island. About 120 Japanese
troops flew to the island just west of Kyushu to offer food and medical
aid and help with the evacuation.
A Fukuoka prefectural police
spokesman said the initial jolt lasted about 30 seconds. Water and gas
pipes burst, hundreds of homes reported power outages and landslides
reportedly triggered a safety mechanism that halted local and bullet
train services.
NHK showed tall office buildings and street lamps
in the center of Fukuoka shaking violently. In residential areas,
cracks appeared in sidewalks and parts of retaining walls flaked off.
Kyushu
island is separated from South Korea by a narrow strait of water, and
the quake was felt about 130 miles away in South Korea's port city of
Busan, where it briefly shook buildings though no damage was reported.
The tremors also set off landslides in parts of Japan's Saga and Nagasaki prefectures, NHK reported.
Ten people in Saga were injured, a prefectural government official said.
In
Saga's Okawa city, a 56-year-old man suffered broken bones after trying
to jump to safety from the second floor of his home, NHK said. One
person was reportedly rescued after being pinned inside a collapsed
home.
While Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone
countries, it is also one of the best prepared for a major quake. Tough
requirements making buildings quake-safe and frequent disaster drills
likely kept injuries and structural damage to a minimum in Sunday's
quake.
On October 23, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Niigata,
about 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, killing 40 people and damaging more
than 6,000 homes. The jolt was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995,
when a magnitude-7.3 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of
Kobe.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
