A powerful earthquake kills at least four people and paralyzes Japan's Hokkaido

TOKYO (Reuters) – At least four people were killed and 33 are missing after the earthquake that paralyzed Hokkaido Island in the north of the country, the press reported, but the death toll could rise.

The earthquake, the last episode of a miserable summer of natural disasters in Japan, has destroyed the power of all 5.3 million people in Hokkaido.

NHK public television reported that the death toll had doubled to four and that six people had been stopped cardiopulmonary, a term commonly used in Japan before the death was officially confirmed. Another 120 people were injured after the magnitude 6.7 earthquake that occurred before dawn.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said 25,000 soldiers of the Self-Defense Forces would be deployed for relief operations.

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.

"There were four big shakes – bang! stroke! stroke! bang! Said an unidentified woman at NHK. "Before we knew it, our house was bent and we could not open the door."

The entire island lost power for the first time since Hokkaido Electric Power Co (9509.t) was created in 1951 when the public service carried out an emergency stop of all its fossil fuel plants after the earthquake. Nearly 12 hours later, power was restored in parts of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, and Asahikawa, its second most populous city.

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

The government said Hokkaido Electric's tomato-atsuma plant was damaged and supplied half of the electricity to the 2.95 million households on the island. Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said it could take a week to restore power to all residents.

Abe's Liberal Democratic Party begins a leadership race on Friday, but said there would be no campaign until Sunday. Abe and rival Shigeru Ishiba have both canceled appearances in the campaign media scheduled for Friday.

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

TV images from the southeastern part of Sapporo showed crumbling roads and mud flowing down a main street. The police directed the traffic because the traffic lights were out while the beverage vending machines, ubiquitous in Japan, did not work in most ATMs.

"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 days after Kansai airport, another major regional center in western Japan, was shut down by Typhoon Jebi. The airport operator has announced that it will resume domestic flights on Friday.

The Tomari nuclear power plant, shut down since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, had a power outage, but authorities said it was safely cooling down its spent nuclear fuel.

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. The Kirin brewery and Sapporo breweries said the two factories were shut down by the blackout.

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.