A powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck northeastern Japan yesterday, triggering a small tsunami and shaking skyscrapers as far away as Tokyo, 300km to the south. At least 59 people were reportedly injured.
The roof of an indoor pool in the coastal city of Sendai collapsed, injuring 17 people, Miyagi prefectural police spokesman Kazunori Abe said, lowering an earlier estimate of 19. Elsewhere, others were hurt by falling rocks and tumbling roof tiles.
TV news footage showed a collapsed house outside Tokyo and landslides in the quake-hit area. A Chiba police spokesman said an 80-year-old woman was trapped but later rescued.
National broadcaster NHK said there were preliminary reports of 59 people injured. Officials were still tallying figures, but police in Miyagi prefecture, which suffered the brunt of the quake, could only confirm 26 injuries, while neighboring Fukushima prefecture had four.
"The horizontal shaking was very strong, so much so that I almost couldn't remain standing," said Masami Oshima, an official with Miyagi prefecture, which includes Sendai.
The quake knocked out power to about 17,000 households, while high-speed train services in northern Japan were suspended and flights were temporarily grounded at Haneda airport. Nippon Oil shut a refinery in Sendai.
The quake struck at around 11:46am and was centered 20km below the ocean floor about 80km off the coast of Miyagi, the Meteorological Agency said. Two 10cm tsunami waves hit the nearby coast shortly after noon, and officials expected little damage from the waves.
The quake was followed by at least four aftershocks and additional quakes of up to magnitude 6 could follow, the agency said.
In 1995, a magnitude-7.3 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people. The depth and offshore location of yesterday's quake helped limit the damage that might have occurred had it been centered under a city.
Authorities in Miyagi were still assessing damage in the area.
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