Strong quake rattles Japan
A search dog follows a rescuer at an earthquake-damaged house today in Hakuba, Japan. More than 30 people were injured late Saturday when a strong quake shook the mountainous area of Nagano prefecture, site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.
TOKYO — A strong earthquake late Saturday struck a mountainous area of central Japan that hosted the 1998 winter Olympics, injuring at least 39 people, officials said.
The magnitude-6.7 earthquake struck shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday west of Nagano city at a depth of 6 miles, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The agency revised the magnitude from a preliminary 6.8 while the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at 6.2. Since the quake occurred inland, there was no possibility of a tsunami.
At least 37 homes were destroyed in two villages, and at least 39 people were injured across the region, including seven seriously, mostly with broken bones, officials said.
“We are trying to assess the situation as quickly as possible, and we’ll do our utmost for the rescue of the injured people,” Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters.
One of the hardest-hit areas appeared to be Hakuba, a ski town west of Nagano that hosted events in the 1998 games. At least 30 homes collapsed there, said Shigeharu Fujimura, a Nagano prefecture disaster management official.
All 21 people trapped under collapsed houses were rescued, with two of them injured, the National Police Agency told Japan’s Kyodo news agency. Japanese television showed police going house to house Sunday morning, calling out to make sure that inhabitants were accounted for.
Fujimori said it was fortunate there haven’t been any deaths reported despite the extent of the damage.
Many houses also lost water, apparently because of a ruptured pipe, and landslides on two major roads blocked access to some areas. “We are afraid there could be some areas that may have been isolated, so we need to conduct a thorough assessment of damage after sunrise,” Fujimura said.
Ryo Nishino, a restaurant owner in Hakuba, told Japanese broadcaster NHK that he had “never experienced a quake that shook so hard. The sideways shaking was enormous.”
He said he was in the restaurant’s wine cellar when the quake struck, and that nothing broke there.
The earthquake was felt across much of northern Japan and in Tokyo, about 125 miles southeast of Hakuba.
NHK reported that a landslide blocked a road after the quake struck. NHK also said that some shinkansen bullet train service in the area was temporarily suspended.
The quake caused scattered blackouts, including about 1,600 homes in Hakuba and Omachi city, the Chubu Electric Power Co. told Kyodo.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were reported at three nuclear power plants in the affected areas. All of Japan’s nuclear plants are offline following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that sent three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant into meltdown. Fukushima is about 155 miles northeast of where Saturday’s earthquake occurred.
The quake was followed by more than 45 aftershocks, and Meteorological Agency official Yohei Hasegawa urged residents to watch out for landslides.
The area was struck by a magnitude-6.7 earthquake the day after the huge March 2011 quake.