A powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck northeastern Japan yesterday, triggering a small tsunami and shaking skyscrapers as far away as Tokyo, 300km to the south. At least 59 people were reportedly injured.
The roof of an indoor pool in the coastal city of Sendai collapsed, injuring 17 people, Miyagi prefectural police spokesman Kazunori Abe said, lowering an earlier estimate of 19. Elsewhere, others were hurt by falling rocks and tumbling roof tiles.
TV news footage showed a collapsed house outside Tokyo and landslides in the quake-hit area. A Chiba police spokesman said an 80-year-old woman was trapped but later rescued.
National broadcaster NHK said there were preliminary reports of 59 people injured. Officials were still tallying figures, but police in Miyagi prefecture, which suffered the brunt of the quake, could only confirm 26 injuries, while neighboring Fukushima prefecture had four.
"The horizontal shaking was very strong, so much so that I almost couldn't remain standing," said Masami Oshima, an official with Miyagi prefecture, which includes Sendai.
The quake knocked out power to about 17,000 households, while high-speed train services in northern Japan were suspended and flights were temporarily grounded at Haneda airport. Nippon Oil shut a refinery in Sendai.
The quake struck at around 11:46am and was centered 20km below the ocean floor about 80km off the coast of Miyagi, the Meteorological Agency said. Two 10cm tsunami waves hit the nearby coast shortly after noon, and officials expected little damage from the waves.
The quake was followed by at least four aftershocks and additional quakes of up to magnitude 6 could follow, the agency said.
In 1995, a magnitude-7.3 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people. The depth and offshore location of yesterday's quake helped limit the damage that might have occurred had it been centered under a city.
Authorities in Miyagi were still assessing damage in the area.
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
CONCESSION: A Shin Kong official said that the firm was ‘willing to contribute’ to the nation, as the move would enable Nvidia Crop to build its headquarters in Taiwan Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday said it would relinquish land-use rights, or known as surface rights, for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), paving the way for Nvidia Corp to expand its office footprint in Taiwan. The insurer said it made the decision “in the interest of the nation’s greater good” and would not seek compensation from taxpayers for potential future losses, calling the move a gesture to resolve a months-long impasse among the insurer, the Taipei City Government and the US chip giant. “The decision was made on the condition that the Taipei City Government reimburses the related
FRESH LOOK: A committee would gather expert and public input on the themes and visual motifs that would appear on the notes, the central bank governor said The central bank has launched a comprehensive redesign of New Taiwan dollar banknotes to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures, improve accessibility and align the bills with global sustainability standards, Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. The overhaul would affect all five denominations — NT$100, NT$200, NT$500, NT$1,000 and NT$2,000 notes — but not coins, Yang said. It would be the first major update to the banknotes in 24 years, as the current series, introduced in 2001, has remained in circulation amid rapid advances in printing technology and security standards. “Updating the notes is essential to safeguard the integrity
RSS