No fewer than four people have been confirmed dead and another 100 others injured in Japan following a powerful overnight earthquake rattled large parts of the east coast and prompted a tsunami warning on Friday morning.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that the 7.4-magnitude quake which occurred off the coast of Fukushima deflected a bullet train, and went on to open cracks in highways and threw products from shelves in shops.
In the early hours of Thursday, a tsunami warning for waves of up to a metre (three feet) in parts of northeast Japan was reportedly lifted after authorities recorded water levels up to 30 centimetres higher than usual in some areas.
Multiple smaller jolts continued to hit the region into Thursday morning, straining nerves just days after Japan marked the 11th anniversary of the massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in the area.
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Damage appeared comparatively minor, in a country with tough building codes intended to protect against devastation from frequent earthquakes, and officials said there were no abnormalities at nuclear plants.
Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said four deaths had been reported, though investigations were still under way into whether they were a direct result of the quake.
Another 107 people were injured, he added.
‘We’ve received reports that there are no data irregularities in the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear plants and the Onagawa nuclear plant,’ Matsuno said, referring to the facility crippled in 2011 and two others in the region.
The quake struck at a depth of 60 kilometres (37 miles) at 11.36 pm and was preceded minutes earlier by a 6.1-magnitude shake in the same area, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.
‘We had two huge earthquakes. The first one was very big and shook hard. I prepared to evacuate, then the second, bigger one hit,’ a municipal official in the Fukushima city of Soma told reporters.
‘I was on the second floor of a two-storey house and I couldn’t stay standing, it was very extreme.’
Meanwhile, Africa Today News, New York gathered that in Shiroishi city, employees at a supermarket were cleaning up damage including products that toppled from shelves and a partially caved-in ceiling.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK