Tsunami waves more than 1m high hit central Japan yesterday after a series of powerful earthquakes that damaged homes, closed highways and prompted authorities to urge people to run to higher ground.
A major magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck the Noto region in Ishikawa Prefecture at about 4:10pm, the US Geological Survey said.
Japan’s weather agency reported a succession of 21 quakes of magnitude 4.0 or stronger hitting the nation’s central region in just over 90 minutes.
Photo: Kyodo via Reuters
Tsunami waves as high as 1.2m hit Wajima port in Ishikawa Prefecture at 4:21pm, about 10 minutes after the strongest jolt, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
“All residents must evacuate immediately to higher ground,” national broadcaster NHK said after the quakes.
Hazardous tsunami waves were possible within 300km of the quake’s epicenter along the coast, on the Sea of Japan side of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of the Interior via CNA
The Japanese government said it was still assessing what damage had been caused and whether there had been any casualties.
About 33,500 households around the epicenter in Toyama, Ishikawa and Niigata prefectures were without power, local utilities said.
A video clip posted on social media showed lines of wooden houses toppled by the quakes, with walls and roofs caved in.
“This is the Matsunami District of Noto. We are in a horrible situation. Please come and help us. My town is in a horrible situation,” a person heard in the video said.
Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said there were no abnormalities reported at the Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa or at other plants.
In Taipei, Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had expressed concern and condolences, as well as the hope that people in Japan could return to normal life as soon as possible.
Tsai instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contact the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei to understand the situation and express a willingness to provide assistance.
The ministry said that it had contacted the association and asked the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Osaka to find out whether any Taiwanese were trapped.
The office said that visiting Taiwanese groups and student groups had reported no injuries so far, adding that it is assisting some tourists who were unable to fly home.
The office is to continue to monitor the situation and possible tsunami events, and provide necessary assistance to Taiwanese in need.
People who encounter an emergency can call the office’s emergency line on 81-90-8794-4568, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by Liu Tzu-hsuan
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS