World

Death Toll Spiking: Hundreds Killed in Japanese Quake

TOKYO (AP) — A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.

Death Toll Spiking: Hundreds Killed in Japanese Quake

Hours later, the tsunami hit Hawaii but did not cause major damage. Warnings blanketed the Pacific, putting areas on alert as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire U.S. West coast. In northeastern Japan, the area around a nuclear power plant was evacuated after the reactor’s cooling system failed.

Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicenter. Another 137 were confirmed killed, with 531 people missing. Police also said 627 people were injured.

The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake unleashed a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami and was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.

Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.

Death Toll Spiking: Hundreds Killed in Japanese Quake

Koto Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to later pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.

“I thought I was going to die,” Fujikawa, who works for a marketing company, said. “It felt like the whole structure was collapsing.”

Scientists said the quake ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.

“The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month’s worth of energy consumption” in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey Scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.

As night fell and temperatures hovered just above freezing, tens of thousands of people remained stranded in Tokyo, where the rail network was still down. The streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

The city has set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes and hotels.

Tomoko Suzuki and her elderly mother stood on a crowded downtown corner, unable to get to their 29th-floor condominium because the elevator wasn’t working. They couldn‘t find a taxi to go to a relative’s house and nearby hotels were booked.

“We are so cold,” said Suzuki. “We really don’t know what to do.”

The government ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant in the city of Onahama to move back at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The Defense Ministry said it had dispatched dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disaster to the plant in case of radiation leak.

Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak at either of them.

Japan’s coast guard said it was searching for 80 dock workers on a ship that was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi.

Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles (kilometers) inland before retreating. The apocalyptic images on Japanese TV of powerful, debris-filled waves, uncontrolled fires and a ship caught in a massive whirlpool resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Large fishing boats and other vessels rode high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.

The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing directions and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, probably because of burst gas pipes.

Waves of muddy waters flowed over farmland near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. Sendai airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.

Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo’s Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

President Barack Obama said the U.S. “stands ready to help” Japan.

Jesse Johnson, a native of the U.S. state of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.

“At first it didn’t feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table,” he told The Associated Press. “I’ve lived in Japan for 10 years, and I’ve never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It‘s gotten to the point where I don’t know whether it’s me shaking or an earthquake.”

NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.

A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky.

“Our initial assessment indicates that there has already been enormous damage,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. “We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment.”

He said the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region. A utility aircraft and several helicopters were on the way.

Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.

A reactor area of a nearby plant was leaking water, the company said. But it was unclear if the leak was caused by the tsunami or something else. There were no reports of radioactive leaks at any of Japan’s nuclear plants.

Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion.

Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction.

“We don’t even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things,” he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was magnitude 8.9, the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world.

The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.

A tsunami warning was extended to a number of areas in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities, but no unusual waves were reported.

Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.

The first waves hit Hawaii about 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT). A tsunami about 7 feet (2.1 meters) high was recorded on Maui and a wave at least 3 feet (a meter) high was recorded on Oahu and Kauai. Officials warned that the waves would continue and could get larger.

Japan’s worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in 1923 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe in 1995 killed 6,400 people.

Japan lies on the “Ring of Fire” – an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world’s quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 nations. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

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Associated Press writers Jay Alabaster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo; Jaymes Song in Honolulu and Mark Niesse in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Seth Borenstein in New York contributed to this report.

This story has been updated.

Comments (33)

  • maxedout
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 5:56pm

    Add your comments

    Report Post » maxedout  
  • proliance
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 3:58pm

    http://www.redcross.org/

    Have you donated yet?

    Report Post » proliance  
  • M.Rapp
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 3:30pm

    wow catharsis, you‘re kind of a joy kill aren’t you? I too am praying for the people of Japan. They are in need of it.

    Report Post » M.Rapp  
  • Via Dolorosa
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 3:25pm

    Yes, earthquakes are a natural event – and usually God causes, and uses,
    natural events to get people’s attention. And He seems to be really
    holding back His wrath from falling on us right now. The Usa has been
    blessed – at least up until the last decade.

    Pray that His blessings continue. And for the non-believers and evil
    doers, please reconsider your thoughts and actions – it is because of people
    worshiping false gods (allah, buddha, pope, etc) as well as people’s
    evil sins that is causing the planet chaos. God has been fairly patient for a
    very long time – and it appears His patience is running out on this society.

    Yes – cliche’ or not – repent, people – that means TURN FROM YOUR SINS and
    follow His laws, and not mankind’s laws or ways. God’s true people are not of
    this world – “in” yes. Of? No.

    Report Post » Via Dolorosa  
  • Milkman
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 3:00pm

    The enormity of this horrible natural disaster, really makes one realize just how powerful ‘mother nature’ is…but also how small mankind is. And somehow I can’t help but think this event proves to me that humans CANNOT control the planet i.e.- weather and that global warming and the notion that man is causes the planet to warm is quite laughable at this point

    Report Post » Milkman  
    • YellowFin
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 6:33pm

      Mankind tends to think more of himself than is appropriate.
      His ambitions and vanity are laughable from our God’s viewpoint.

      Report Post » YellowFin  
  • Psychosis
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 2:24pm

    nature is trying to remind us mere humans how really irrelevant we really are

    to those who think we are having any lasting impact on the earth should take a closer look at how quickly nature can erase any vestige or evidence of mans existence in a blink of the eye

    dont believe me?……………ask the japanese guy who is currently looking for his house……………it was there a minute ago

    Report Post » Psychosis  
    • ladykrystyna
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 2:49pm

      I was thinking the same thing – if God, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, wants us gone, we’re gone. Period.

      Just ask the dinosaurs.

      Report Post »  
  • POIPNE
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 2:19pm

    As one who spent a few years stationed in northern Japan, I can sympathize with the folks there. I was totally humbled the first time we experienced a quake. You feel totally helpless as your world shakes and rumbles. The Japanese are very resilient people, they’ve been through a lot of these but, from what I’ve read so far, this was the worst in a long time. It should be kept in mind that, even though the quake is over, the after-shocks and resultant tidal wave (tsunami) activity that follows can go on for weeks. More will come I fear.

    Report Post » POIPNE  
  • pap pap
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:47pm

    You know this is G W Bush’s fault.

    Report Post »  
  • Bernard
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:23pm

    There was a time when earthquakes were measured by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That is no longer relevant. I fear the headlines that ‘hundreds have died” will be proven wrong. This terrible act of nature would reap the life of people into the thousands.
    I was recently commenting of the sudden frequency of earthquakes across the world and the possibility that California’s over due San Andreas fault may trigger or the Caldera in Yellow Stone Park. With this earthquake in Japan I fear that the one of the many Tectonic plates that are in the Pacific ocean are now at the threshold of putting sufficient pressure on the San Andreas fault for it to finally slip. God forbid.

    Report Post »  
  • Quagaar Warrior
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:04pm

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    This quake, (which is a result of global warming), is obviously Bush’s fault.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Report Post »  
    • ValiantDefender
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:21pm

      @Quagaar – actually I would look to Nikoli Tesla…the mad genius terrorizes us from the Grave! Take THAT Thomas Edison!

      Report Post » ValiantDefender  
    • powedj
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 3:20pm

      @QUAGAAR WARRIOR

      You took the words right out of my mouth. May I add: it’s the tea parties fault along with Sara Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

      Report Post » powedj  
  • Uriel
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:50am

    Death toll stands at about 500 as I write this. What amazes me is the difference between this quake & tsunami compared to the Haiti quake which was 100 times smaller than this one. That the Japanese are so well prepared, even for something of this magnitude is incredible.

    Report Post »  
  • home_of_the_brave
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 10:01am

    Very Humbling indeed, I hope they can recover from this tragedy.

    Report Post »  
    • NeoFan
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 10:16am

      It will take more than an earthquake or a couple of nuclear bombs to finish the Japanese people.
      They will survive.

      Report Post »  
  • cranberry
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 9:19am

    Bless all of them

    Report Post » cranberry  
  • beekeeper
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 8:58am

    Fox News just reported (8:45 AM) that an entire passenger train is unaccounted for…

    Report Post » beekeeper  
  • wonderbug
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 8:44am

    Amen!

    Report Post »  
  • kickagrandma
    Posted on March 11, 2011 at 8:21am

    Pray for all in harm’s way. Get right with our GOD. HE is moving and HE is calling out to people all over the world. Are you hearing HIM? Please, know HE loves us so much HE doesn’t want anyone of us to live or to die without HIM in our lives. I don’t know how much louder HE can call to us or how much longer HE will be willing to try.

    Prayers for rescuers and all medical personnel as they are going to be so overworked. Prayers for GOD’ intervention in all. GOD BLESS! Amen!

    Report Post »  
    • home_of_the_brave
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 9:59am

      Today we were all humbled. My thoughts and prayers are with Japan and all others affected by this horrible tragedy.

      Report Post »  
    • Catharsis
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:00am

      Your thoughts and prayers are with them? Please, do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time. Your prayers are petitioning an empty sky; it’s wasted breath.

      Laura  
    • Catharsis
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:08am

      I am sick to my stomach every time I hear of someone being saved only to have the religious zealots come out declaring it was divine intervention. No – either that person was extremely fortunate, or through the good work of fellow HUMAN beings they were saved. An earthquake is a perfectly natural occurrence, and your bronze age superstitions and claims that it’s “gods wrath” is laughable.

      Laura  
    • Miguelito
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:10am

      My prayers are with you!

      Report Post »  
    • Browncoat359
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:37am

      Catharsis,I don‘t care what or how you believe but here’s the thing,if you can get hundreds of thousands(hopefully more possibly less) of people all thinking positive thoughts and taking positive actions then what harm is there? That’s what prayer is,you don’t wanna do it,that’s fine AND your right but shut up about how ridiculous it is because it only serves to make you look petty and cruel.

      Report Post » Browncoat359  
    • OneFootRandy
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 11:46am

      @catharsis – your words are bouncing around in an empty head I fear. In a universe that everything came from nothing, is it so hard to allow for the possibility that the collective power of prayer can actually have an impact?

      Deny and doubt if you want, but must you insult those who care enough to show their concern through prayer? Its no coincedence that people who claim to be of faith also donate charity and disaster relief at a noticbly higher rate than non believers.

      I join with my brothers and sisters with prayer for all those affected by this terrible event.

      Report Post »  
    • @leftfighter
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:14pm

      Catharsis

      You can‘t just be respectful of others’ religious values, can you? You absolutely must denegrate religion and religious people. Why? Does it make you feel better to troll and spread negativity everywhere you go?

      Bottom line: If we‘re wrong and God doesn’t exist, at least we will have striven for the highest moral ground possible and not lived it belligerently, berating people for being religious and not being respectful of others’ religious faith.

      Just because you have no faith doesn’t mean you should berate us for our Faith.

      Report Post » @leftfighter  
    • Bearfoot
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 1:47pm

      Catharsis,
      You are not mocking Christians, you are mocking and ridiculing the True God, your Creator, who is giving out warnings.
      If you want to learn something, Read 2Peter 3:1-18
      If you are not interested, then remain ignorant.

      Report Post » Bearfoot  
    • ladykrystyna
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 2:48pm

      Catharsis, let me add: you are a bigoted moron. Don’t you have anything decent to say? People are dead, a country is in turmoil and you can’t even think of something positive or helpful to say.

      There’s a good name for you – the seagull – fly in, squawk a lot, poop everywhere and leave.

      Your post was a waste of time.

      Report Post »  
    • Catharsis
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 4:57pm

      Let me add that my post doesn’t imply we should all sit around and wait for the end – being proactive is great, and being a “good samaritan” is indeed a worthy thing to strive for.

      Laura  
    • YellowFin
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 6:26pm

      Catharsis,
      Well, aren’t you so very wonderful, superior in every way.
      Please excuse us for being so impertinent.

      Report Post » YellowFin  
    • hillbillyinny
      Posted on March 11, 2011 at 9:24pm

      For those thinking “mother nature” is doing this, I’m more concerned that Father God is allowing this to get our attention once again. We get further and further away from Him and His teachings bringing ourselves closer and closer to our own end. He’s looking for more of us to commune with. Come on in!

      Report Post »  

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