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Japan credits strict preparations for low quake damage

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.
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