It was 11:34 p.m. Wednesday in Japan (3:34 p.m. in France) when a strong earthquake shook a large part of the eastern archipelago, including the devastated regions of Fukushima just eleven years ago, on March 11 2011, by a huge tsunami. A few tens of seconds later, a second earthquake, much stronger still, and of a rare duration (more than a minute) was felt with violence, including in Tokyo. An earthquake that collapsed sections of houses, derailed a train, without causing any casualties, opened cracks in highways and overturned displays in stores. But the damage seemed relatively minor compared to the power of the earthquake, whose provisional toll reported four dead and 107 injured.
According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), the hypocenter of the quake that occurred on Wednesday at 11:36 p.m. (2:36 p.m. GMT), reassessed at 7.4 (against 7.3 initially), was 60 km deep under the Pacific Ocean, about 60 km from the town of Namie, itself largely deserted since the Fukushima nuclear accident. A one-meter-high tsunami warning was issued within a minute on the coasts of Fukushima and Miyagi departments in the northeast. He ended up getting up this Thursday morning.
power cut
A staging that brings back bad memories to the Japanese, forever marked by the tsunami that claimed more than 18,500 lives in March 2011. “During the tremors, it was impossible to stand up,” assured a reporter from the local branch of NHK Miyagi. This is confirmed by the readings taken by the weather agency, which classified this earthquake in the departments of Fukushima and Miyagi at level 6 + of intensity felt on the surface on a scale of 7, i.e. the second highest level ( maximum reached in places on March 11, 2011).
Since the earthquake, a power cut has also affected nearly 3 million customers in the large area served by the operator Tokyo Electric Power, including nearly 700,000 in Tokyo. The company also indicated that “inspections were underway at nuclear power plants” stopped in the Fukushima region: Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini (number 2), also in the process of being dismantled. For now, there are no anomalies detected in the first of the two plants according to the authorities. Almost all the regions that had been affected by the disaster eleven years ago were strongly shaken, from north to south of the main island, Honshu.
The occurrence of these earthquakes in the middle of the night makes it impossible to immediately notice any damage, apart from the most visible, such as the stoppage of trains, power cuts or objects falling inside homes or in convenience stores not open. -stop. A crisis unit has been opened in the Prime Minister’s office.
Update: on 03/17/2022 in the morning with the new provisional assessment and the lifting of the tsunami alert.