Residents of northern Japan said yesterday that careful preparations and lessons learned from previous earthquakes limited the damage caused by the latest major tremor to hit the region.
The earthquake-prone country is constantly preparing for the dreaded “Big One” and has built an infrastructure designed to withstand big tremors, which in much of the world would cause a large number of casualties.
Thursday’s 6.8-magnitude quake shattered windows, triggered landslides and cracked buildings — and was also felt strongly in Tokyo, some 800km to the south — but miraculously caused no deaths.
“We had much more damage in the last big one in 1994,” said Masayuki Ueno, 49, who manages a photo studio in Hachinohe, one of the biggest cities on the northern tip of Japan’s main island Honshu.
“After the last quake hit, I threw out the entire exterior and bolstered the building structure, adding about 10 tonnes of reinforced steel,” he said. “I think many people in this area make sure to have extra support on their houses.”
National authorities said a total of 158 people were injured in the latest earthquake, including 35 seriously. There were no reports of deaths or missing people.
Hachinohe in 1994 was hit by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake that killed two people and injured 680 others in the city alone.
That quake, which struck off the coastal city in the Pacific, was followed by an aftershock of magnitude 6.9, completely flattening 90 buildings.
But Hachinohe’s disaster prevention office reported no buildings were flattened or even half destroyed in Thursday’s earthquake.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS