At least two dead and 38 missing after Hokkaido paralyzing earthquake in Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) – At least two people were killed and 38 missing after a massive earthquake that paralyzed Hokkaido Island in northern Japan on Thursday, the press reported, but the death toll could rise.

The earthquake also destroyed the power of the 5.3 million inhabitants of Hokkaido.

(graph: tmsnrt.rs/2oJz6zd)

NHK public television said five people were considered "insensitive", a term commonly used in Japan before the death was officially confirmed and another 120 people were injured after the magnitude 6.7 earthquake.

Aerial images showed dozens of landslides exposing barren hills near the town of Atsuma, in southern Hokkaido, with mounds of reddish earth and spilled trees stacked at the edge of green fields . The collapsed remains of what appeared to be houses or barns were scattered.

"The shaking was really terrible," an unidentified man told Aksuma at NHK. "I thought the house was going to collapse."

Other scenes in the southeastern part of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, showed decrepit roads and mud flowing down a main street.

The entire island lost power for the first time since Hokkaido Electric Power Co (9509.t) was established in 1951. After the earthquake, the company proceeded to an emergency shutdown of all its fossil fuel plants.

All trains across the island, which are about the size of Austria, have also been stopped.

The government said the Tomato-Atsuma plant, which supplies half of the electricity to 2.95 million households on the island, has been damaged.

The utility was trying to restore electricity from hydropower and other fossil fuel sources on Thursday and was scheduled to commission more plants by Friday, the minister of state and government told reporters. industry, Hiroshige Seko. It may take a week to restore power to all residents, he said.

& # 39; IT IS NOTHING THAT I CAN DO IT & # 39;

The television footage showed that the police were directing the traffic because the traffic lights were off. The beverage vending machines, ubiquitous in Japan, and most ATMs were not working.

"Without electricity, I can not do anything except write prescriptions," a doctor in Abira, the nearby city of Atsuma, told NHK.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the quake occurred at 3:08 am (Wednesday 18:00 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 40 km (25 miles), with its epicenter about 65 km southeast of Sapporo. He recorded a strong 6 on the Japan 7-point earthquake scale.

He struck near Hokkaido's main airport, New Chitose Airport, which would be closed at least Thursday. Tiles and water were visible on the terminal floors.

The Chitose Airport is a major gateway to the island, known for its mountains, lakes and abundant farmland and seafood. More than 200 flights and 40,000 passengers would be affected, said Kyodo News agency.

The shutdown comes a few days after the closure of Kansai Airport, a major hub for companies exporting semiconductors near Osaka, in western Japan after Typhoon Jebi's passage . Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the authorities were hoping to reopen Kansai airport for domestic flights on Friday.

The telephone service provider NTT East has made public phones free in Hokkaido to allow residents to call landlines when mobile phones lose their power.

The Tomari Nuclear Power Plant, shut down since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, suffered a power outage but cooled its spent nuclear fuel safely with backup power, said the chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide. Suga.

DEATH PLANTS

Agriculture, tourism and other services are major economic drivers on Hokkaido, which accounts for only 3.6% of Japan's GDP, but there is an industry. Kirin brewery and Sapporo breweries said the two plants were shut down by the blackout, although they said no structural damage had been reported.

A fire broke out in a Mitsubishi Steel Mfg Co (5632.T) factory in the city of Muroran after the earthquake has been extinguished without injury.

A series of smaller shocks, including a magnitude 5.4, followed the initial earthquake, the association said. Residents have been warned to take precautions for major potential aftershocks in the coming days.

Japan is located on the arc of the Ring of Fire composed of volcanoes and ocean trenches that partly surround the Pacific Basin.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, hit the northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, causing a tsunami that devastated communities along the Pacific coast and killed nearly 20,000 people.

The tsunami also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, resulting in a series of explosions and collapses that emitted radiation into the air and the ocean.

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.