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JAPANESE authorities have issued warnings of a terrifying “megaquake” after last night’s 7.5-mag earthquake injured at least 33 and left hundreds more without power.
Officials are still assessing the damage from yesterday, after tsunami waves slammed along the northeastern coastline following the late-evening quake, with surges of up to 70cm hitting seaside towns.
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Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) have sounded fresh alarm bells, warning of aftershocks looming in the coming days
They have also alerted people of a slightly increased chance of a colossal magnitude-8 quake and fresh tsunamis from Chiba to Hokkaido.
Officials urged residents across 182 municipalities to stay on high alert and double-check emergency plans.
Over 90,000 people were ordered to evacuate after the first tremors were felt at 11.15pm local time on Monday night.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara urged residents to get to higher ground amid fears of violent aftershocks and terrifying waves.
Shopkeeper Nobuo Yamada, in the town of Hachinohe, told public broadcaster NHK: “I’ve never experienced such a big shaking.”
Some 33 people have been injured, including one seriously, mainly by objects landing on them during the earthquake, emergency services said.
Several of the casualties were at a hotel in Hachinohe, and a man in Tohoku was slightly injured when his car fell into a hole.
Initial reports braced residents for monster waves up to 10m (3ft) as TVs and mobile phones flashed up alerts reading “TSUNAMI! RUN!”
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, urged affected residents to race to higher ground or evacuation buildings.
She said: “We are putting people’s lives first and doing everything we can.
“Even after the tsunami arrives, the second and third waves may become larger and reach the area, so please pay close attention to tsunami information and do not leave safe locations until the warning is lifted.”
Residents were told to remain in safe spots until the warning was lifted, which it was at around 6:20am local time on Tuesday morning.
A government task force has been set up to investigate the extent of the damage.
The original predictions of surges up to ten feet were later downgraded.
Kihara said that that around 800 homes were without electricity, and that the Shinkansen bullet trains and some local lines were suspended in parts of the region.
Engineers were checking nuclear power plants in the region to check for damage, Kihara said.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority said about 450 litres of water spilled from a fuel cooling area at the Rokkasho fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori, but this was not a safety concern.
Around 480 terrified residents hunkered down at Hachinohe Air Base, as Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi revealed that 18 military choppers were scrambled to survey the quake-hit zone.
Meanwhile, 200 stranded travellers were forced to spend the night in limbo at New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, according to NHK.
Satoshi Kato, vice principal of a public high school in Hachinohe, told NHK he was at home when the quake hit, sending glasses and bowls crashing to the floor in a spray of shards.
Racing to the school, an official evacuation centre, he found traffic jams, panic and multiple accidents as shaken residents tried desperately to flee. When he arrived, not a single evacuee had yet reached the building, he said.
Japan’s 1-7 seismic scale registered the tremor as an upper 6 in the Aomori prefecture – a quake strong enough to make it impossible to keep standing or move without crawling.
Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes.
Located in the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater.
Quakes are extremely hard to predict, but in January a government panel marginally increased the probability of a major jolt in the Nankai Trough off Japan in the next 30 years to 75-82 percent.
The government then released a new estimate in March saying that such a “megaquake” and subsequent tsunami could cause as many as 298,000 deaths and damages of up to $2 trillion (£1.5trillion).
Residents are also all too aware of how deadly these incidents can be.
Yesterday’s earthquake was in the same location as the 2011 Tohoku disaster, one of the worst in recorded history, causing £375billion in damage.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake also triggered a tsunami, with the deadly combination killing around 20,000 people.
It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan and triggered waves that reached heights of 133ft in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture.
The massive tremors also triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident, the only incident along with Chernobyl to be rated seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
The fallout from the accident is expected to carry on until at least 2051.
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