Updated
January 1, 2024, 9:03 a.m. ET
January 1, 2024, 9:03 a.m. ET
A powerful earthquake struck western Japan on Monday, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuation orders in several prefectures, trapping people under collapsed buildings and disrupting electricity and cell phone services in Ishikawa Prefecture, the quake's epicenter, officials and Japan's public officials said. legal broadcaster with.
The quake struck on the Noto Peninsula at around 4:10 p.m. and had a magnitude of 7.6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. According to the United States Geological Survey, the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.5.
It was much weaker than the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that struck Japan in 2011, triggering a tsunami that killed thousands and triggering a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant.
Japanese authorities were still gathering information about those injured. The patients arrived at a hospital in the city of Suzu, which was running on generator power due to the blackout, and at one in the city of Wajima, where injured people were being treated in the hospital's parking lot, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Police responded to calls from residents reporting collapsed buildings and people trapped underneath. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said there had been at least six cases of people trapped under rubble in Ishikawa, but he could not say how many people were involved or provide details of their injuries.
Here's what else you should know:
The Japan Meteorological Agency said Monday's quake was of very shallow depth, which tends to make earthquakes more dangerous. However, initial reports from authorities in Ishikawa Prefecture indicated that there was no major damage to “important facilities.”
The weather agency initially issued a major tsunami warning for parts of the west coast, saying waves could reach heights of up to five meters, or 16 feet, on the Noto Peninsula, which faces the Sea of Japan, and ordered residents to move higher immediately to break open areas. The Japanese government downgraded the warning a few hours later, saying the greatest expected height of the waves was three meters but urging residents to stay away.
An official from Japan's nuclear regulator said there were no signs of anomalies at any radioactivity monitoring station at the Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa on Japan's west coast. Mr Hayashi said a fire broke out at a transformer at the plant but was extinguished.
The weather agency warned that aftershocks and tsunamis could last up to a week and advised residents to be on alert for at least two to three days.
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