Powerful earthquake rocks Japan, but no tsunami

Japan was shaken by a magnitude 8.5 earthquake Saturday.  There were no reports of significant damage or injuries. 

A magnitude 8.5 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan on Saturday, shaking buildings in Tokyo, but there was no danger of a tsunami and no reports of damage since the quake was extremely deep.

There were no reports of further irregularities at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, damaged four years ago in a massive 9.0 magnitude quake, or any other nuclear facilities.

The Shinkansen high speed train line had briefly stopped between Tokyo and Osaka due a power outage and some trains in Tokyo stopped as well for safety checks, causing crowds of commuters in some of the city's liveliest areas to mill around outside stations.

The quake, centered off the Ogasawara islands south of Tokyo, occurred at a depth of 590 km (370 miles) and, unusually, was felt throughout much of Japan.

"It shook violently. Our Buddhist altar swayed sideways wildly," Michiko Orita, a resident of the island of Hahajima, near the epicenter, told NHK national television. "I have not experienced anything like that, so it was so scary."

She added that things on the island were normal.

There were no reports of significant damage or injuries, though the Tokyo Fire Department had received calls about people suffering injuries through falls, NHK said.

In Chiba, just east of Tokyo, loudspeaker broadcasts called on people to remain calm, but there were no signs of damage.

"Since it was magnitude 8.5 this was a very big quake, but fortunately it was very deep at 590 km," Naoki Hirata, an earthquake expert at the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Center, told NHK.

"But the shaking was felt over a broad area... Fortunately, because it was deep, there is little danger of a tsunami."

Tokyo Electric Power Co said there were no abnormalities at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant following the quake.

On March 11, 2011, a massive 9.0 magnitude quake touched off a tsunami that left nearly 20,000 people dead and nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

Japan, one of the world's most seismically-active nations, has been seeing a period of unusual activity over the last year or so. In September 2014, 63 people were killed in the eruption of Mount Ontake, a volcano in central Japan.

On Friday, at the end of a week marked by several earthquakes in Tokyo, a volcano on the remote southern island of Kuchinoerabujima erupted, forcing the evacuation of the island's entire population. Volcanic activity has also picked up at a resort area not far from Tokyo. (Reporting by Edmund Klamann, Linda Sieg, Mari Saito and Joseph Radford, writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Powerful earthquake rocks Japan, but no tsunami
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0530/Powerful-earthquake-rocks-Japan-but-no-tsunami
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe