An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale rocked the southern Japanese island of Kyushu yesterday, killing at least one person and injuring 400 others, officials and press reports said.
The quake, which occurred at 10:53am, also collapsed houses and roads, caused landslides and disrupted land and air traffic.
The government's Meteorological Agency immediately issued tsunami warnings but lifted them one hour later after detecting no significant rise in the tide.
The Kyodo news agency reported about 400 people received treatment at hospitals for injuries. Police confirmed 64 injuries, six of them serious, caused by splinters from shattered window panes and falling objects.
Glass splinters cascaded down from an office building in a business district in Fukuoka, sending passersby rushing away in panic, according to television footage on the Japan Broadcasting Corp.
A 75 year-old woman died after she was crushed by a falling block wall in Fukuoka, a city official said.
"She suffered internal bleeding and a fractured pelvis," the official said by telephone.
Some 10 people were injured on the islet of Genkai at the mouth of Fukuoka Bay as landslides and heavy jolts crushed more than 20 houses, a local official said.
"There was an awful jolt and it rolled for a while, dragging down the chest of drawers and the cupboard in the kitchen at my house," Chizumi Nakamura, secretary of the Genkai community center, said by telephone.
"Children, elderly people and women among the 750 islanders are being evacuated to the city as aftershocks continued," she said, adding no one was reported buried in the landslides.
The epicenter was located in waters off Fukuoka, a major city on the island's northern coast, the meteorological agency said. Its focus was 9km below surface.
Akikichi Matsuzaki, a 50-year-old fisherman on Genkai who was aboard his boat when the quake struck, told Jiji Press, "I heard an enormous bang from the seabed. We felt a shock as if the boat's bottom bumped a big thing."
"The boat swayed greatly. I don't know what happened at all."
A spokesman for the Fukuoka prefectural police headquarters said five hours after the quake that police confirmed 64 injuries, five gas leaks, and damage to four roads and 138 houses. There were also three landslides.
He said a crack, 2cm wide and 100m long, was found on a road near Fukuoka Dome, a seaside baseball park. The surface of the road also buckled out 30cm at one point.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS