A MASSIVE 8.9-magnitude earthquake has hit Japan, unleashing a monster 10-metre high tsunami that sent ships crashing into the shore and carried cars through the streets of coastal towns.
At least three people were reported killed and many injuries were reported from Pacific coastal areas of the main Honshu island and the capital Tokyo, police said, while TV footage showed widespread flooding in the area.
The Japanese government said the quake and tsunami had caused “tremendous damage” as it sent military personnel to deal with the disaster.
A powerful 10-metre wall of water was reported in Sendai in northeastern Miyagi prefecture, media reported after a four-metre wave hit the coast earlier.
Helicopter footage showed massive inundation in northern coastal towns, where floods of black water sent shipping containers, cars and debris crashing through towns.
Mud waves were shown racing upstream along the Natori river in Sendai city, blanketing farm fields.
In the capital Tokyo, where millions evacuated strongly swaying buildings, multiple injuries were reported when the roof of a hall collapsed during a graduation ceremony, police said.
The dead included a 67-year-old man crushed by a wall and an elderly woman killed by a fallen roof, both in the wider Tokyo area.
Near Tokyo, a huge fire engulfed an oil refinery in Iichihara, TV pictures showed.
However the Japanese government said there was no damage to nuclear power plants in the quake-hit area.
Plumes of smoke rose from at least 10 locations in city, where four million homes suffered power outages. Port areas were flooded, including the carpark of Tokyo Disneyland.
The first quake struck just under 400 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, the US Geological Survey said. It was followed by several aftershocks, one as strong as 7.1.
“We were shaken so strongly for a while that we needed to hold on to something in order not to fall,” said an official at the local government of the hardest-hit city of Kurihara in Miyagi prefecture.
“We couldn't escape the building immediately because the tremors continued... City officials are now outside, collecting information on damage,” she said.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan quickly assembled his cabinet after the quake hit, and the government quickly dispatched naval vessels from near Tokyo to the worst-hit northeastern area of Miyagi.
The quake, which lasted about two minutes, strongly rattled buildings in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area and home to some 30 million people.
At least 10 fires were reported in Tokyo, where the subway system stopped, sirens wailed and people streamed out of buildings.
Metropolitan expressways were also closed as people poured out high rise buildings on to the street.
There were reports of injuries from falling debris in parts of Tokyo and Sendai to the north. At least 25 people were injured when the ceiling of a hall in Tokyo's Chiyoda district collapsed.
TV footage showed a large building on fire and bellowing smoke in the Odaiba district of Tokyo.
In central Tokyo, trains were stopped and passengers walked along the tracks to platforms.
Footage on NHK from their Sendai office showed employees stumbling around and books and papers crashing from desks.
Several quakes had hit the same region in recent days, including a 7.3 magnitude one on Wednesday.
Thirty minutes after the quake, tall buildings were still swaying in Tokyo and mobile phone networks were not working. Japan's Coast Guard has set up task force and officials are standing by for emergency contingencies, Coast Guard official Yosuke Oi said.
“I'm afraid we'll soon find out about damages, since the quake was so strong,” he said
Japan sits on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, which is dotted with volcanoes, and Tokyo is situated in one of its most dangerous areas.
The earthquake was felt as far away as the Chinese capital Beijing, 2,500 kilometres to the west.
In Taiwan, the central weather bureau warned people living on the island's east and northeast coasts to be on guard for tsunamis.
In Russia, people were being evacuated from communities in the Kuril chain that includes four islands claimed by Japan. Ships had been ordered to leave ports.
A tsunami warning was issued for Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Mariana Islands, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.
“An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicentre within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours,” the centre said in a statement.
It also put the territories of Guam, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Micronesia and Hawaii under a lower tsunami watch. Indonesia issued its own tsunami warning.
The quake sent the Nikkei share index plunging at the close while the yen fell sharply against the US dollar. The mega-city of Tokyo sits on the intersection of three continental plates - the Eurasian, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates - which are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government's Earthquake Research Committee has warned of a 70 per cent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The last time a “Big One” hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city.
In 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more then 6,400 people.
More than 220,000 people were killed when a 9.1-magnitude quake hit off Indonesia in 2004, unleashing a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in countries around the Indian Ocean as far away as Africa.
Small quakes are felt every day somewhere in Japan and people take part in regular drills at schools and workplaces to prepare for a calamity.
Nuclear power plants and bullet trains are designed to automatically shut down when the earth rumbles and many buildings have been quake-proofed with steel and ferro-concrete at great cost in recent decades.
AFP
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