A magnitude-7.1 earthquake centered off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture rocked northeastern Japan on Thursday night, killing two people and injuring more than 100 in six prefectures and causing extensive blackouts in the Tohoku region, The Asahi Shimbun confirmed Friday.
A magnitude-7.1 earthquake centered off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture rocked northeastern Japan on Thursday night, killing two people and injuring more than 100 in six prefectures and causing extensive blackouts in the Tohoku region, The Asahi Shimbun confirmed Friday.
The quake, which struck at 11:32 p.m., was the largest aftershock since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11.
Power was cut to more than 4 million households in the region as five generators at thermal power plants in Akita, Noshiro in Akita Prefecture and Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture automatically stopped operations after the temblor.
The Tohoku Electric Power Co. restored power to about 1.2 million households by midday Friday, but it is not known when the company will be able to resume operations of the suspended turbines and restore power to all households.
At the Ishinomaki Red Cross Hospital in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, an 85-year-old man died early Friday, likely from shock experienced during the quake. In Obanazawa, Yamagata Prefecture, a 63-year-old woman suffering from bronchitis died after her oxygen machine stopped because of the power outage.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said it was the first time that an aftershock of the March 11 earthquake reached the seismic intensity of upper 6.
The earthquake forced the Tohoku Shinkansen Line to cancel services between Ichinoseki and Shin-Aomori stations--the only route on the line in operation in the upper Tohoku region--on Friday.
Train services between Shinjo and Fukushima stations on the Yamagata Shinkansen Line and trains between Morioka and Akita stations on the Akita Shinkansen Line were also canceled. Most services on local lines in the region were canceled as well.
The Tohoku Expressway was closed between the Furukawa Interchange in Miyagi Prefecture and the Mizusawa Interchange in Iwate Prefecture because the earthquake caused bumps and cracks on the roadways.
According to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp., landline phone service was cut off for 62,500 households, mainly in Ishinomaki and Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture. NTT East was working Friday to restore the lines
A Meteorological Agency spokesman warned that aftershocks as large as magnitude 7 could continue in the Tohoku and Kanto regions.