Girl, 9, crushed by wall as earthquake hits Japan

A POWERFUL earthquake hit western Japan yesterday, killing four people and injuring hundreds.

A nine-year-old girl was killed by a falling concrete wall at her school in Osaka, and two of the other fatalities were men in their 80s. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 307 people were treated for injuries at hospitals. Most of the injured were in Osaka.

Residents were cleaning up debris after the magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck early yesterday, damaging buildings and leaving homes without water or gas. It also grounded flights in and out of the city and stopped traffic and commuter trains for most of the day.

By the evening, bullet trains and some local trains were running again, with stations packed with commuters trying to get home, many of them waiting in long lines. An exodus of commuters who chose to walk home filled pavements and bridges.

Dozens of domestic flights in and out of Osaka were grounded, while train and subway services, including bullet trains, were suspended to check for damage. The earthquake knocked over walls, broke windows and set off scattered building fires.

It toppled bookcases in homes and scattered goods on shop floors and also cracked roads and broke water pipes, leaving homes without water.

The earthquake reminded many of the magnitude 7.3 Hanshin-kobe quake in 1995 that killed more than 6,000 people. Yesterday’s quake followed a series of tremors near Tokyo in recent weeks. Japan is still recovering from the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that killed more than 18,000 people.