Severe earthquakes shook central Japan on Monday and triggered meter-high tsunami waves. Authorities directed people to seek shelter on higher ground in affected areas.
“All residents should be evacuated to higher ground immediately,” national broadcaster NHK said after multiple earthquakes struck the Noto Peninsula at the northern tip of Ishikawa Prefecture after 4 p.m. (0700 GMT).
“We understand that you care about your home and your possessions, but your life is more important than anything else. Run to the highest areas possible,” an NHK host added.
The first waves caused by the tsunami, measuring 1.2 meters high, hit the port of Wajima on the Noto Peninsula at 4:21 p.m. (07:21 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, warning of the risk of one Tidal wave warned waves up to five meters high.
Images on Japanese television also showed that a fire broke out in Wajima, without providing further details for the time being.
In a video posted on the social network X, we could see old wooden houses collapsing. “This is the Matsunami district of Noto. We are in a terrible situation. Please come and help us. My city is in a terrible situation,” one person implores in this video.
“Dangerous tsunami waves (…) are possible within a radius of 300 km from the epicenter along the coast of Japan,” warned the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).
Cities in the Russian Far East, including Vladivostok, issued a “warning” on Monday due to a possible tsunami threat, but have not carried out any evacuations at this time.
The JMA recorded 21 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 4.0 on the Noto Peninsula in just over an hour and a half.
The most important of the series occurred at 4:10 p.m. (07:10 GMT) on the northeastern tip of the peninsula. The magnitude originally measured at 7.4 was quickly revised upward: 7.5 according to the USGS American Geophysical Institute and 7.6 according to the JMA.
According to local electricity providers, about 33,500 households were without power in the three prefectures of Ishikawa, Toyama and Niigata, all of which lie on the Sea of Japan.
Several highways near the epicenters were closed to traffic and high-speed train (Shinkansen) service between Tokyo and Ishikawa was also suspended, Japan Railways said.
Japan is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes in the world.
Therefore, extremely strict construction standards apply in the archipelago, so that the buildings are generally able to withstand strong earthquakes and residents are familiar with such situations, for which they regularly prepare.
But Japan is haunted by the memory of the terrible 9.0 magnitude earthquake that was followed by a huge tsunami on the country's northeast coast in March 2011, a disaster that left about 20,000 people dead and missing.
This disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
So far, no irregularities have been reported at the Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa department or at other nuclear power plants in the country, government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi assured on Monday.