A powerful 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Ishikawa Prefecture on Japan’s west coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday. Three buildings collapsed in the coastal city of Suzu on the tip of the Noto Peninsula, and one man fell from a ladder and has no vital signs, according to the country’s disaster management agency.
(Bloomberg) — A powerful 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck Ishikawa Prefecture on Japan’s west coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday. Three buildings collapsed in the coastal city of Suzu on the tip of the Noto Peninsula, and one man fell from a ladder and has no vital signs, according to the country’s disaster management agency.
There is no threat of a tsunami, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters. He later said that the government is sending a team to assess the damage. Local officials have not sought aid from the country’s Self-Defense Forces, he said.
The quake caused no power outages in the surrounding areas, and no damage could be immediately detected to communications networks or to gas and refinery facilities, according to government ministries. Hokuriku Electric Power Co.’s Shika nuclear power plant and Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tsuruga nuclear power plant were unaffected, an official at the Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority said. Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said on its Twitter account that its halted Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was undamaged from the quake.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was in Singapore meeting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday, with plans for a summit in South Korea starting Sunday. Nothing has been decided on whether the earthquake would affect Kishida’s travel plans, Matsuno said.
Bullet train operations between Nagano and Kanazawa stations stopped shortly after the tremors began at 2:42 p.m. local time, West Japan Railway Co. said. Trains began running between Nagano and Toyama stations within the hour, the company said.
The quake, with a depth of 12 kilometers, had a shaking intensity of as much as an upper 6 on Japan’s earthquake scale, according to the meteorological agency. The agency earlier estimated the quake was 10-km deep and had a magnitude of 6.3.
–With assistance from Grace Huang.
(Updates with weather agency’s revised magnitude, disaster agency’s reports of earthquake damage)
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