Police officers try to restart traffic signals by attaching electric generator during an electric stoppage at the area after an earthquake in Tokyo, Japan March 17, 2022. REUTERS/Issei Kato
March 16, 2022
By Tim Kelly and Chang-Ran Kim
TOKYO (Reuters) -A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 jolted Japan’s northeast coast on Wednesday, shaking buildings as far away as Tokyo where it left hundreds of thousands briefly without power.
The tremor hit off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, some 275 kilometres (170 miles) northeast of Tokyo and at a depth of 60 kilometres, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
While there were no immediate signs or reports of major damage, it revived memories of the devastating quake and tsunami that hit the region 11 years earlier, also in March.
There were some reports of fire, local media said, and a number of people sustained injuries across northeastern Japan, but none of those appeared serious. Large parts of the capital, Tokyo, were plunged into darkness for an hour or more, although power appeared to be largely restored by early on Thursday morning.
Separately, a Shinkansen bullet train derailed with some 100 people on board, although there were no reports of injuries.
There were no abnormalities at the country’s nuclear power plants, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters, adding that he expected power to be largely back within an hour.
Authorities earlier said a fire alarm had been triggered at a turbine at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. That plant was devastated by a magnitude 9 earthquake and following tsunami in March 2011, causing a radiation leak and the worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century.
Tokyo Electric Power Company initially said around 2 million households lost power on Wednesday, including 700,000 in the capital.
Authorities issued a tsunami warning for the region of as high as 1 metre (3.3 ft), with public broadcaster NHK reporting waves of 20 centimetres (8 inches) in some places.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Strong quakes in Japan can disrupt manufacturing, particularly of sensitive electronic components such as semiconductors that are made using precision machinery.
The 2011 quake in Fukushima halted production for three months at a factory owned by Renesas Electronics Corp, which makes nearly a third of all microcontroller chips used in cars. A fire at the facility last year exacerbated a chip shortage that has forced auto companies to curb output.
Officials at Renesas were unavailable when Reuters contacted them outside regular business hours.
Authorities warned residents in Fukushima, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures to expect aftershocks.
Sitting on the boundary of several tectonic plates, Japan experiences around a fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
(Reporting by Tokyo Bureau; Editing by Catherine Evans and Rosalba O’Brien)
Source: One America News Network
