Fukushima earthquake shakes Japan: Tsunami all clear - but three fatalities confirmed

Created: 03/17/2022, 14:16

Strong earthquake shakes Fukushima: Paving stones on the ground in front of JR Fukushima train station were damaged by the quake.

© STR / JIJI PRESS / AFP

A powerful earthquake struck Fukushima in Japan.

The authorities issued a tsunami warning, which has now been lifted.

Three people are killed in the earthquake.

Update from March 17, 8 a.m.:

At least three people died and almost 200 others were injured in the strong earthquake in Fukushima, Japan.

This was reported by the television station

on Thursday.

An initially issued tsunami warning was lifted early in the morning.

According to the competent supervisory authority, there were no irregularities in the nuclear ruins in Fukushima.

According to the operator, the interim power outage in millions of households has also been resolved.

A fire alarm was triggered in the nuclear ruins in Fukushima as a result of the quake on Thursday night.

But there was no fire, the nuclear regulatory authority assured.

A failed cooling system in a cooling pond for used fuel rods of the second nuclear power plant Fukushima Daini twelve kilometers south of the nuclear ruins could be activated again.

The strong and unusually long-lasting tremors were also felt in other parts of the Asian island kingdom, such as the greater Tokyo area 250 kilometers away.

In the meantime, the power went out in more than 2.2 million households in the country, around 700,000 were affected in Tokyo alone.

The quake struck Japan at 11:36 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

The center was around 57 kilometers deep off the coast of Fukushima.

The meteorological authority initially gave the magnitude as 7.3, but later revised it upwards to 7.4.

The authority had also immediately warned of up to one meter high tsunami waves.

Strong earthquake shakes Fukushima - tsunami warnings lifted

Update from March 16, 9:40 p.m .:

The tsunami warnings have been lifted by the country’s meteorological authority.

Tsunami warnings were no longer in effect early Thursday morning (local time), the Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.

After the strong earthquake in Japan, a tsunami of up to one meter was warned on the Pacific coast of the prefectures of Fukushima and Miyagi.

Update from March 16, 8:08 p.m .:

The 7.3 magnitude quake also caused a 20 centimeter high tsunami wave in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi, according to the public broadcaster NHK.

A shinkansen bullet train derailed north of Fukushima, according to the railway company JR East.

The passengers were reportedly unharmed.

The government warned people in the region of severe aftershocks in the coming week.

The energy supplier Tepco announced on Twitter that the power supply had been secured again.

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Earthquake shakes Fukushima: "It is medium-sized by Japanese standards"

Update from March 16, 5:32 p.m .:

The Potsdamer Geoforschungszentrum (GfZ) explained at the request of the dpa that the center of the new earthquake in Japan with a magnitude of 7.3 was almost exactly below Fukushima.

"It's medium-sized by Japanese standards," said seismologist Marco Bohnhoff.

Although the tremor at a depth of more than 50 kilometers was much weaker than that of 2011 with a magnitude of over 9, it would have caused considerable shaking: He expected shaking from 8 to 9 on a scale of 1 to 12.

It was not an unexpected event for Bohnhoff.

The Pacific-oceanic tectonic plate slides under Japan, this process is stopped when the plates get stuck.

Then, over the course of years or even centuries, energy accumulates and suddenly discharges itself.

An even bigger earthquake could follow immediately, but that is unlikely.

Japan: Strong earthquake shakes Fukushima: tsunami warning - no information about damage to nuclear ruins

First report from March 16:

Fukushima – A strong earthquake shook Fukushima late Wednesday evening (local time).

Japan's meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning for Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures.

It was initially not known whether there was damage to the nuclear ruins in Fukushima.

The long-lasting 7.3 magnitude tremor struck just before midnight (local time), almost eleven years to the day after the northeastern region of the Asian archipelago was devastated by a devastating magnitude 9 earthquake and triggered massive tsunami.

The earthquake on Wednesday was also felt in Tokyo, around 300 kilometers away.

Fukushima earthquake: Tidal wave warning - power outages

The weather agency warned of a tidal wave up to one meter high.

Power outages occurred in Fukushima, local media reported.

Around two million households are without electricity, including 700,000 in Tokyo alone, reports the energy supplier Tepco.

The government in Tokyo set up an emergency staff.

The severe earthquake in the north-east suddenly brought back memories of the devastating catastrophe eleven years ago.

On March 11, 2011, a gigantic tsunami hit the Pacific coast and flattened everything: towns, villages and huge areas of cultivation sank under the masses of water and mud.

The flood killed around 20,000 people.

In Fukushima, the result was a super meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

It became the symbol of the triple catastrophe known as "3/11" all over the world - even if none of the deaths are attributed to radiation.

The operator Tepco is checking whether the renewed strong earthquake caused irregularities, it said on Thursday night.

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

(dpa)