Japan’s North Hit by Magnitude-6.8 Quake; 95 Injured (Update3)
"Japan"07/23/2008
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- At least 95 people were injured when a magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck northern Japan today, the country's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. No fatalities were reported and there was no threat of a tsunami.
The quake hit Honshu island at 12:26 a.m. local time at a depth of 108 kilometers (67 miles), the agency said. It struck about 120 kilometers east of the city of Akita, according to an advisory on the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site. Buildings shook in Tokyo, 485 kilometers to the south.
At least 106 people may have been injured, 15 of them critically, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The temblor was the biggest to hit Japan since June 14 when at least 12 people died after a 6.9-magnitude quake struck northern Honshu, according to the USGS. Japan, which experiences about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes annually, lies in a zone where four tectonic plates meet and occasionally shift.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's government established an office to coordinate its response to the quake and a survey team headed by Shinya Izumi, the minister in charge of natural disaster measures, will evaluate the damage, Kyodo News reported.
Electricity Outages
Twenty-two buildings were partly damaged and two fires that started during the shaking were put out, the FDMA said.
Fujitsu Ltd. halted output at a chip factory in Iwate prefecture where the quake struck and an electronic component plant in neighboring Aomori, the company's Tokyo-based spokesman Toshiyuki Fukuoka said.
Fujitsu is assessing the semiconductor plant for damage and has received no reports of damage in Aomori, he said.
Toshiba Corp.'s chip factory in Iwate stopped operations and equipment is being inspected, said Hiroko Mochida, the company's Tokyo-based spokeswoman. There were no reports of injuries or damage, she said.
Tohoku Electric Power Co. said on its Web site it restored power to 8,611 houses and buildings in Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. The company's Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi prefecture and its Higashidori plant in Aomori prefecture were operating normally, the company said.
No Japanese nuclear power plants were affected by the quake, Japan's Ministry of Trade said in an e-mailed statement. Nippon Steel Corp. restarted its thermal power plant in Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture after it was shut down because of the quake, the company said. Tohoku Electric also temporarily halted its Hachinohe thermal plant in Aomori prefecture.
Carmakers
Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third-largest carmaker, said its factories in Tochigi and Fukushima prefectures were unaffected by the earthquake.
Aisin Seiki Co., Japan's second-largest auto parts supplier, said its factory in Iwate prefecture is operating normally. Kanto Auto Works Ltd., an assembler for Toyota Motor Corp., said its factory in Iwate was unaffected.
Nippon Oil Corp., the operator of the only refinery in the region, said its Sendai plant wasn't affected.
Services on bullet train lines north of the city of Sendai were suspended, East Japan Railway Co. said on its Web site. Services are scheduled to restart at 4 p.m. Trains between Sendai and Tokyo to the south are running almost on time.
Expressways in the Tohoku area that were closed for checks reopened to traffic at 3:25 a.m., NHK reported, citing highway authorities.
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan's largest phone operator, and KDDI Corp. said in statements the quake didn't affect their services in the region.