By DPA,
Tokyo: Hundreds of people were killed Friday after a magnitude-8.9 earthquake hit north-eastern Japan, generating a tsunami as high as 10 metres that swept away people, cars, boats, crops and buildings.
Some 200 to 300 bodies were found off the coast of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture alone near the quake’s epicentre after a 10-metre tsunami hit the city, the public broadcaster NHK reported, citing police.
The waves also washed away a ship carrying about 100 people off Miyagi’s coast.
The waves rolled into Sendai at 3.55 p.m. (0655 GMT), submerging residential areas and farms under muddy, debris-filled water.
Hundreds of people were injured and many were missing, including a number of children who were sucked into the sea off north-eastern Japan, NHK said. Deaths were also reported in the Kanto region.
The Meteorological Agency said the quake was the biggest on record in Japan. The agency noted there were more aftershocks than usual, including three of more than magnitude 7.
Six deaths were reported at a welfare facility that collapsed in Minami Soma in Fukushima prefecture, and the Kyodo News agency said eight people were missing in a landslide in Soma, Fukushima prefecture.
A tsunami 7 metres high hit the city at 3.50 p.m. (0650GMT), NHK said. City officials in Soma also said a tsunami had surged about 5 kilometres inland there.
About 50 people were injured in Tokyo, including 35 people at a hotel where the roof collapsed. Media reported extensive damage to buildings in and around Tokyo.
Along the north-east coast, waves swamped buildings and swept over roads and other infrastructure, including Sendai’s airport. People gathered on the roofs of inundated buildings. Women waved white handkerchiefs from windows to call for help.
The government declared a state of emergency for its nuclear reactors, which number 50.
Tokyo instructed about 3,000 residents near a reactor in Fukushima prefecture to evacuate because of possible leaks of radiation after the reactor’s water level fell, and a fire broke out in the turbine hall of the Onagawa nuclear power station in Miyagi, but officials there and at other reactors said no radioactive leaks were detected.
The fire was extinguished, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported.
Television footage showed vehicles submerged in Kamaishi, Iwate prefecture, as a 4.2-metre tsunami hit the city’s coast and piles of rubble on the streets of Ofunato, also in Iwate.
High waves also hit such cities as Hiroo and Kushiro on the northern island of Hokkaido.
The Meteorological Agency issued new tsunami warnings late Friday for Hokkaido, north-eastern, western and southern Japan, forecasting waves as high as 6 metres.
Tsunami warnings were also issued across the Pacific from Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan to the Pacific islands and up and down the coast of the Americas.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 8.9 on the Richter scale while Japan’s Meteorological Agency recorded it at a magnitude of 8.8.
The quake, which hit at 2:46 p.m. (0546 GMT) at a depth of 24.4 kilometres, shook buildings in Tokyo violently, and some caught fire.
NHK showed footage of blazes at petrochemical complexes in Ichihara, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, while large explosions were reported at petrochemical complexes in Shiogama, Miyagi prefecture.
City officials in Sendai said 14 fires were reported there.
Narita International Airport outside Tokyo, was closed but reopened while airports in north-eastern Japan were shut down, news reports said.
Nuclear power stations on the Pacific coast in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures shut down operations automatically after the quake hit.
About 3.9 million households experienced power outages in the metropolitan area, Tokyo Electric Power Co said. About 4.4 million households in eastern Japan suffered power failures, NHK said.
As aftershocks continued in north-eastern Japan and around Tokyo, all train services in these regions were suspended.
Mobile phone service were disrupted as people frantically called family and friends.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the government set up a task force to deal with the aftermath of the quake. About 8,000 troops have been dispatched for quake relief, the government said.
The government said the country received offers of aid from other countries while requesting Washington to dispatch US troops stationed in the country to help with relief work.