At first, it was 2011 all over again.
“It really came back. And it was so awful. The sways to the side were huge,” Kazuhiro Onuki said after northeastern Japan was jolted by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake yesterday, the strongest since a devastating quake and tsunami five years ago.
“But nothing fell from the shelves,” Onuki, 68, said in a phone interview, his voice calm and quiet.
Photo: AP
Coastal residents returned home from higher ground and fishing boats to port, after tsunami warnings were lifted along Japan’s Pacific coast. The earthquake gave Tokyo — 240km away — a good shake, but was much less powerful than the magnitude 9 quake in 2011, and only moderate tsunami waves reached shore.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which leaked radiation for kilometers after the 2011 tsunami, reported no abnormalities. Decommissioning work on the destroyed reactors was suspended and the site inspected.
At least 14 people were reported injured, three with broken bones, and Japanese TV showed items scattered on the floor in a store and books fallen from shelves in a library.
On the coast, lines of cars snaked away in the pre-dawn darkness after authorities urged residents to seek higher ground immediately.
The first tsunami waves hit about an hour later. The highest one, at 1.4m, reached Sendai Bay about two hours after the quake. By comparison, the waves in 2011 were 10m to 20m high.
The evacuation appeared to proceed calmly.
It was the largest earthquake in northeastern Japan since the one in 2011 and some large aftershocks the same day.
The US Geological Survey measured Tuesday’s quake at a lower magnitude 6.9.
The Japan Meteorological Agency described it as an aftershock of the 2011 quake, which triggered tsunami that killed about 18,000 people and wiped out entire neighborhoods.
“Aftershocks could continue not only for five years, but as long as 100 years,” Kyoto University seismologist Yasuhiro Umeda said on Japanese broadcaster NTV.
In some areas, water could be seen moving up rivers, which funnel the waves to even greater heights, but remained well within flood embankments.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the utility that operates the Fukushima plant, said a swelling of the tide of up to 1m was detected offshore.
The plant is being decommissioned after 2011 tsunami sent three of its reactors into meltdown, but the site remains at risk as the utility figures out how to remove still-radioactive fuel rods and debris and what to do with the melted reactor cores.
TEPCO said a pump that supplies cooling water to a spent fuel pool stopped working, but a backup pump was employed after about 90 minutes, and the temperature rose less than 1°C.
TEPCO decommissioning unit director Naohiro Masuda said he believes a safety system shut off the pump automatically as the water in the pool shook.
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