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Trip Advisory: Earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan
WATCH IT LIVE : Tsunami hits Japan after massive quake
FROM: WWW.BBC.CO.UK
Japan’s most powerful earthquake since records began has struck the north-east coast, triggering a massive tsunami.
Cars, ships and buildings were swept away by a wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude quake, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant but officials said there were no radiation leaks.
The death toll is unclear, but police say 200 to 300 bodies have been found in the port city of Sendai.
Kyodo news agency reported that 133 other people had died and another 531 were missing, and projected the death toll would eventually top 1,000.
The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, said scientists.Measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, the tremor struck at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.
The first waves from the tsunami have reached the US mainland at Oregon, and people have been evacuated from coastal areas of that state and in California and Washington.Some of the biggest waves of between 6-7ft (about 2m) would hit near California’s Crescent City, predicted the US National Weather Service.
The waves earlier passed Hawaii, but there were no reports of major damage.
A tsunami warning was extended across the Pacific to North and South America, where many other coastal regions were evacuated, but the alert has since been lifted in most parts, including the Philippines, Australia, China and Indonesia.
Strong waves hit Japan’s Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, officials said, damaging dozens of coastal communities.
Kyodo said a 10-metre wave struck Sendai, which is in Miyagi.
