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KURIHARA, Japan: A powerful earthquake struck northern Japan on Saturday, killing three people, injuring more than 100 more and trapping guests at a hot-spring resort buried by a landslide.
The earthquake, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, also caused a leak of radioactive water from a power plant, although the company said that the amount was so small that there was no cause for public concern.
The quake rattled a largely agricultural region in northern Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. It was strong enough to shake buildings in Tokyo 500 kilometres (300 miles) to the south and was followed by around 100 aftershocks.
Near Kurihara, one of the worst-hit towns, a landslide destroyed a forest hot-spring resort, which was reduced to a pile of wooden rubble.
Five people were rescued, two with broken bones, but several remained missing, police said.
"For a few seconds, the land roared. I couldn't figure out what was happening to me," said Mikiko Sugawara, 54, whose husband runs another hotel near Kurihara.
Kyoichi Suzuki, a 50-year-old beekeeper, said he was just 100 metres (yards) away from a landslide that buried a car.
"I escaped by a hairbreadth," he said with relief afterwards. "If I had been in that car, I would have been killed."
The government said that three people were killed and 65 were injured, while public broadcaster put the number of injured at 110.
The toll could rise further as at least three construction workers were feared to be buried under rubble, Kurihara official Ryo Kurosawa said.
The dead included a 48-year-old construction worker who was hit by rocks while working on a dam project and a 55-year-old man who was buried by a landslide as he went fishing.
The other victim, a 60-year-old man, "rushed out of the house when the quake hit but was run over by a truck", chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told an impromptu news conference in Tokyo.
Japan endures some 20 percent of the world's powerful earthquakes and has built an infrastructure intended to withstand the impact of tremors.
The government deployed the military to help assist in relief efforts, while Shinya Izumi, the minister for disaster management, flew to the scene
"The top priority is to save lives. We are doing our best in rescue operations," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters.
The injured included 17 passengers on a bus that plunged into a pond due to a landslide, public broadcaster NHK said. In Ohsu city, around five children were cut by shattered glass at a childcare centre.
More than 20,000 houses were without power across northern Japan after the initial earthquake, which struck just 8 kilometres (five miles) underground.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that 14.8 litres (3.8 gallons) of water came out of a pool in which radioactive equipment is stored at a reactor in Fukushima prefecture, but the company said there were no risks to the public.
Masanori Oikawa, a local official in Oshu, said that people were responding calmly, even though they were in shock.
"The jolt was so strong that I couldn't stand without holding onto the wall," he said.
"We saw electric poles swinging and the walls of homes were damaged. We're used to earthquakes, but this was really scary," he said.
- AFP/so
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