Powerful quake devastates island

TOKYO — A powerful earthquake rocked Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thursday, triggering landslides that crushed homes, knocking out power and forcing a nuclear power plant to switch to a backup generator.

The magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck southern Hokkaido at 3:08 a.m., Japan's Meteorological Agency said. The epicenter was east of the city of Tomakomai, but the shaking buckled roads and damaged homes in Hokkaido's prefectural capital of Sapporo, with a population of 1.9 million.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that two people had been confirmed dead. He did not give details.

The Japanese national broadcaster NHK, citing its own tally, reported that 125 people were injured and nearly 40 are feared missing. Hokkaido's local disaster agency put the number of injured at 48.

Several people were reported missing in the nearby town of Atsuma, where a massive landslide engulfed homes in an avalanche of soil, rocks and timber.

Reconstruction Minister Jiro Akama told reporters that five people were believed to be buried in the town's Yoshino district. Some of the 40 people stranded there were airlifted to safer grounds, NHK said.

Aerial views showed dozens of landslides in the surrounding area, with practically every mountainside a raw slash of brown amid deep green forest..