Several powerful earthquakes shook northwestern Japan over a span of two hours yesterday, toppling and setting alight homes, causing blackouts, cutting water and gas services and derailing a bullet train. Media reports said at least four people had died and more than 300 others were injured.
The quakes -- the first of which measured magnitude 6.8 and struck at 5:56pm -- were centered near Ojiya, Niigata Prefecture, about 256km northwest of Tokyo.
Media reports said the shaking in some parts of Niigata was so severe that people had difficulty standing.
Buildings hundreds of kilometers away in Tokyo swayed several times for as long a minute.
One person in Ojiya died in hospital after being hit by falling rocks and suffering a broken neck, NHK television reported. A 34-year-old man was struck by a falling wall as he fled his home in Tokamachi and later died, media said.
Sewage and water mains burst, gas and telephone services were down and about 250,000 homes had lost power, officials told Japanese media.
Several homes were on fire, Nagaoka disaster official Toshimoto Onda told NHK.
Near Ojiya, trees and soil on a hillside sheared away, burying at least five cars and injuring several people, NHK said.
The jolt triggered an automatic safety device that halted most train services, according to media reports. Railway officials said a bullet train had derailed and some of the cars had tipped to the side near Nagaoka, in Niigata Prefecture, but nobody appeared to have been hurt. Another train headed to Niigata from Tokyo had jumped its tracks but there were no reports of injuries, NHK said.
The temblor came just days after Japan's deadliest typhoon in more than a decade, which left 77 dead and more than a dozen others missing.
Authorities said there were concerns that the shaking could cause topsoil loosened by the storm's torrential rains to slide down hillsides.
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