Aftershocks keep Japan on edge
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aftershocks keep Japan on edge*
POSTED: 0118 GMT (0918 HKT), March 26, 2007
Story Highlights
• Magnitude 6.9 quake off coast of Japan kills one, injures 193
• 5.3-magnitude and 4.8-magnitude aftershock temblors struck on Monday
• Meteorological Agency warns strong aftershocks could continue for a week
• Electricity restored to most homes after outages affected 160,000
households
WAJIMA, Japan (Reuters) -- Aftershocks jolted the west coast of central
Japan on Monday, keeping residents on edge a day after a strong
earthquake killed one person, injured nearly 200 and flattened homes.
Sunday morning's 6.9-magnitude quake, which struck the Noto peninsula in
Ishikawa prefecture, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of Tokyo,
destroyed houses, buckled roads, triggered landslides and cut off water
and electricity supplies to thousands of homes.
A 5.3-magnitude temblor, one of more than 175 aftershocks, struck early
on Monday, and a 4.8-magnitude quake jolted the area in mid-afternoon,
Japan's Meteorological Agency said.
Officials warned that more could occur.
About 2,600 people spent the night in evacuation shelters, and many
other residents slept in their cars.
"The aftershocks are scary, so I spent last night in an evacuation
center," said 83-year-old Kiyo Kawaguchi, surveying the damage to her
home in the rural city of Wajima, one of the hardest-hit areas.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary panel in Tokyo that 68
houses, many of them old wooden structures with heavy tile roofs, had
been destroyed and another 164 badly damaged.
The government's disaster agency put the total number of damaged houses
at 564 and public broadcaster NHK said more than 10,000 households
lacked running water.
An emergency-relief team of firefighters that had been searching the
rubble of collapsed houses confirmed that no one was trapped, an
Ishikawa prefecture official said.
Shogoro Hashimura, 81, hid under a table at the office of his sawmill in
Wajima when Sunday's quake struck.
"When I looked outside, my truck was trapped under the rubble and
woodchips and lumber were strewn all over," he said.
"I want to do something about my collapsed mill, but I can't until the
aftershocks stop."
Early warning
The plight of Wajima's elderly highlights the vulnerability of Japan's
aging population when disasters strike.
"I'm worried because there aren't many young people in this neighborhood
and I don't know how I'll cope with this mess," said 76-year-old Kazuko
Kakuda, who had returned from an evacuation center with her husband
Tsunetaro, 77, to try to clean up the toppled furniture and broken
dishes in their home.
The Meteorological Agency, using an early warning system that detects
smaller temblors before a main quake hits, issued a tsunami alert on
Sunday about 100 seconds after the quake, about two minutes faster than
previously.
The tsunami warning was lifted the same day after small waves hit some
areas.
The agency was also able to send an "emergency earthquake flash" to
monitors about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the focus about five
seconds before the strong quake rattled the region.
But hard-hit Wajima failed to receive the warning before the temblor
struck because it was too close to the focus.
The agency plans to use the system, in place for tsunami warnings to a
limited number of subscribers since October, for earthquake
announcements starting later this year.
Electricity was restored to most homes after outages on Sunday affected
around 160,000 households, Noto airport on the peninsula reopened after
cracks on the runway were repaired, and train services were back to
normal, officials and media said.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, which accounts for about 20 percent of
the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.