I am located in Tokyo, and we just felt a long duration earthquake of average intensity starting at 8:43 a.m. local time Saturday morning, June 14, 2008. (Not enough to cause damage here.) However, the Japan Meteorological Agency reports that in the northern part of the main Japanese island the earthquake is of a very significant intensity.
BBC News has this breaking story on their front page, as do all the other major news sources. Sadly, at least three people are reported dead, at least seven missing, and at least 110 injured, some badly. Reports continue to pour in, and it is very likely there will be significantly more casualties.
More details below the fold....
The earthquake first struck at 8:43 a.m. Japan time this Saturday morning. It was centered roughly on the border between southern Iwate Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, in the Tohoku region of Honshu, Japan's main island, at about 8 to 10 Kilometers below the surface. (The shallower the earthquake, the more damaging on average.) The closest major city is Sendai, at least 80 Kilometers south of the epicenter. Tokyo is about 390 Kilometers south of the epicenter. Preliminary intensity estimate at the epicenter was 7.0 on the Japanese scale.
There were no tsunami warnings issued, and there have been no tsunamis reported. (The earthquake was centered well within Japan's land mass.)
Based on immediate data from the Japan Meteorological Agency, which has some 4,000 monitoring stations throughout Japan, it appears this multi-minute 8:43 a.m. earthquake was followed by some quick aftershocks of lower intensity and then another powerful earthquake of equal 7.0 intensity at 9:01 a.m., centered in the same location. Aftershocks, often at JMA scale 4+ intensity, have been continuing all day.
Japan is the most active earthquake area in the world, at least in terms of populated land areas.
All the usual news outlets are busy gathering as much information as possible, and so are government authorities as they respond to the quake. The three deaths acknowledged so far include a fisherman, age 56, buried in a landslide in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, a fairly substantial distance from the epicenter; a man, age 60, who ran out of his home in a panic and was struck by a truck or car in Iwate Prefecture; and a construction worker, age 48, hit by a rock at a dam in the same prefecture.
In Kurihara City, Miyagi Prefecture, part of a hot spring hotel building collapsed when it was hit by a landslide. There seven people are still missing. Natural hot springs, called onsen, are extremely popular in Japan, and the hotel likely would have been at or near peak occupancy Saturday morning as a popular weekend getaway.
There are numerous reports of injuries, many serious. At a preschool in Oshu, one teacher and eight children were injured by broken glass. The Miyagi Fire Department, which covers Sendai, says there are several injuries caused by falling furniture in their area. In Miyagi at least two houses collapsed, and four people on a bus travelling near the Sendai Airport were badly injured when their vehicle flipped over.
Area expressways are now closed, and the BBC reports that all shinkansen (bullet trains) in the area automatically shut down, as designed. Japan Rail East, the primary train operator in the area, has suspended some services. There are nuclear electric generating plants throughout Japan, but they are all continuing to operate normally. (They also shut down automatically if shaken enough.) However, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reports that several gallons of radioactive water leaked from two spent fuel pools at their Fukushima plant. TEPCO says there is no risk to the environment. Power was interrupted, much of it intentionally as a safety precaution, over wide areas in the earthquake zone. There are also reports of multiple bridge collapses, buckled highways, and water line breaks.
Besides tsunamis and landslides, the major concern in these earthquakes is for people living and working in roughly pre-1980s structures. (The Japanese adopted a stricter earthquake building code in 1979, with some improvements in 2000.) An earthquake can also cause fires and subsequent property loss (mainly), a particular problem in areas with a high density of wooden buildings — which does not describe this particular area of Japan.
Interestingly, BBC reported that Japanese forecasters "predicted" this earthquake and issued a warning a short time before it struck. This warning was likely the result of a new nationwide earthquake monitoring system placed in service in October, 2007 — the first of its kind in the world. The BBC has an interesting story about how the system works and how it offers less than a minute's warning, which is often enough time to take useful precautions.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency seismic scale (or shindo scale) is different than the popular Richter scale, and this difference causes some confusion in news reporting. Wikipedia has a good explanation. In fact, a JMA 7.0 is an extremely powerful quake in the specific affected area. At this intensity "occasionally even highly earthquake-resistant buildings are severely damaged and lean."