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TOKYO (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake on northern Japan's Hokkaido island caused a landslide that swallowed homes early Thursday, injuring and trapping a number of people and reducing energy in the country. several areas.
A landslide along a long ridge in the rural town of Atsumi has been observed in aerial images of the NHK public channel. A dozen people were transported to the hospital with injuries, including a serious one, he added.
There were widespread blackouts and blocked roads, the NHK said, but no deaths were reported.
The earthquake, which struck at 03:08 (18:08 GMT Wednesday), had a magnitude of 6.7, said the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The US geological survey said it had already struck some 68 km southeast of Sapporo, the main city of Hokkaido.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who arrived at his office before 6 am, told reporters that his government had set up a command center to coordinate relief and rescue. His voice seemed haggard, Abe said saving lives was the top priority of his government.
NHK showed a collapsed brick wall and broken glass in a house and quoted local police as saying people trapped in collapsed structures.
The JMA said the earthquake was not at risk of a tsunami.
Japan, located on the arc of volcanoes and ocean trenches that partially surrounds the Pacific Basin, accounts for about 20% of earthquakes with magnitude 6 or more in the world.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, hit the ocean off the coast of Sendai city in the north of the country. The quake triggered a series of massive tsunamis that devastated a wide swath of the Pacific coast and killed nearly 20,000 people.
The tsunami also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, resulting in a series of explosions and collapses in the worst nuclear disaster in the world in 25 years.
Saturday marked the 95th anniversary of the Great Kanto earthquake, a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. Seismologists have said that another earthquake could hit the city at any time.
Written by William Mallard; edited by Andrew Roche and Sandra Maler
