International   

Six die in Japan quake

Temblor forces evacuation of thousands, sparks fire at n-plant

KASHIWAZAKI (Japan): A powerful earthquake ripped into Japan's northwest coast Monday, killing at least nine people and causing a reactor at a sprawling nuclear power plant to spill water containing radioactivity into the sea - an accident not reported to the public for hours.

The 6.8-magnitude morning temblor injured more than 900 people as it toppled hundreds of wooden homes, tore meter (yard) wide fissures on the coastline and buckled the asphalt on highways and bridges. Some 10,000 people fled to evacuation centers as aftershocks rattled the region.

The quake triggered a fire and an unrelated leak of water containing radioactive material at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world's largest in terms of power output capacity. The leak was not announced until the evening, many hours after the quake.

About 1.2 cubic meters - or 1,200 litres - of water apparently spilled from a tank at one of the plant's seven reactors, and entered a pipe that flushed it into the sea, said Tokyo Electric Power Co. official Jun Oshima. Officials said there was no ``significant change'' in the seawater near the plant.

``The radioactivity is one-billionth of the legal limit,'' Oshima said of the leaked water.

In Kashiwazaki city, the quake reduced older buildings to piles of lumber. Kyodo News agency reported more than 900 people were hurt, with injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises, and some 780 buildings sustained damage, more than 300 of them destroyed.

Nine people in their 70s and 80s died in the quake, most of them after being crushed when buildings collapsed on them, said officials with the National Police Agency in Tokyo.

``I got so dizzy that I could barely stand up,'' said Kazuaki Kitagami, a worker at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Kashiwazaki, the hardest-hit city in the quake zone 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Tokyo. ``The jolt came violently from just below the ground.''

The area was plagued by a series of aftershocks. There were no immediate reports of additional damage or injuries from the aftershocks. Near midnight Monday, a 6.6-magnitude quake hit off Japan's west coast, shaking wide areas of the country, but it was unrelated to the Niigata quakes to the north and there were no immediate reports of fresh damage.

The water leak and fire at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa reactors renewed doubts about the safety of Japan's nuclear power plants, which have suffered a long string of accidents and cover-ups amid deep concerns they are dangerously vulnerable in the earthquake-prone nation. The country's 55 reactors supply about 30 per cent of its electricity.

The first word of trouble was a fire that broke out at an electrical transformer at the plant Monday morning. All the reactors were either already shut down or automatically switched off by the quake. The blaze was quelled by early afternoon and TEPCO said there was no damage to the reactor and no release of radioactivity.

But in the evening, the company released a statement on the water leak, explaining that it had taken all day to confirm the details of the accident. But the delay raised suspicions among environmentalists, who oppose the government's plan to build new plants.

``The leak itself doesn't sound significant as of yet, but the fact that it went unreported is a concern,'' said Michael Mariotte at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Maryland-based networking center for environmental activists. ``When a company begins by denying a problem, it makes you wonder if there's another shoe to drop.''

The accident comes as the government is discussing raising the quake resistance of such plants, said Aileen Mioko Smith, of the Japan-based environmentalist group Green Action. The fire showed that some facilities at nuclear power plants such as electrical transformers were built to lower quake-resistance levels than other equipment such as reactor cores, she said.

``That's the Achilles heel of nuclear power plants,'' said Mioko Smith, who pointed out that it took the plant two hours to put out the fire.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari on Tuesday told TEPCO not to resume operations of the plant before making a thorough safety check, Kyodo News agency reported.

The quake, which hit the region at 10:13 a.m. (01:13 GMT) was centered off the coast of Niigata, 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Tokyo. The tremor made buildings in the capital sway and was also felt in northern and central Japan. Tsunami warnings were issued, but the resulting waves were too small to cause any damage.

As rescue crews dug through the rubble in search of survivors or more victims, focus shifted to getting food and water to evacuation centers. Many roads were impassable, though bullet train service to nearby Niigata was resumed late Monday.

More than 60,000 homes in the quake zone were without water and 34,000 were without gas as of late Monday afternoon, local official Takashi Takagi said. More than 25,000 households in the zone were without power, he added.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - whose ruling party is trailing in the polls - interrupted a campaign stop in southern Japan for upcoming parliamentary elections, rushed back to Tokyo and headed to the damaged area.

``Many people told me they want to return to their normal lives as quickly as possible,'' Abe told reporters in Kashiwazaki. ``The government will make every effort to help with recovery.''

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. The last major quake to hit the capital, Tokyo, killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90 percent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.

In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes. It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe. - AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Pakistan thins down reference against Chief Justice
NWFP Government-tribals pact to end violence
Six die in Japan quake
13 Tigers surrendered: army
Jolt to Nepal verification
Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary visiting Pakistan
U.K. to expel four Russian diplomats
Solution should be acceptable to all: Pakistan
“Taliban behind attack”
Somali talks put off
Hasina arrested, sent to jail
Sabeel remanded to custody till August 13

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu