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To: maceng2 who wrote (440)	9/25/2003 6:41:13 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1417

Huge earthquake shakes Japan island 7-foot tsunami, major damage reported in north Japanese television broadcast footage of a fire at an oil refinery in Tomako on Hokkaido island. BREAKING NEWS MSNBC AND NBC NEWS TOKYO, Sept. 26 — A potentially historic earthquake and two powerful aftershocks struck Hokkaido in northern Japan early Friday morning, causing major structural damage, NBC News reported. The quake preliminarily registered magnitude 8.0, a rare category of earthquake capable of causing widespread destruction. It generated a 7-foot-high tsunami off the coast of Hokkaido, and tsunami advisories were issued for much of the Pacific region, including Japan, Russia, the Philippines, Alaska and Hawaii. msnbc.com PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENTS indicated that the earthquake, which struck about 4:50 a.m. (4:50 p.m. ET Thursday), was a major one. The Japan Meteorological Agency said it was an intensity-7.6 earthquake on the Japanese scale. The National Earthquake Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, meanwhile, said it rated at 8.0 on the U.S. scale and classified it as a “great quake” capable of causing widespread destruction. Both aftershocks would have qualified as major earthquakes, meteorologists said. The aftershock, which came after about an hour and a half, measured 7.0 by itself on the Japanese scale. Specific assessments of casualties and damage were not immediately available. But NBC News producer Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo that there was widespread damage to buildings in Hokkaido, while NHK television showed video of a fire at an oil refinery. Early reports by NHK said at least seven people were injured, two of them when a local train derailed. Hokkaido, which is about the size of Austria, is the second-largest of Japan’s four main islands. It is home to 5 million people, a nuclear reactor and active volcanoes. It is less than 500 miles from Tokyo, and its capital, Sapporo, was host to the 1972 Winter Olympic Games. TSUNAMIS COULD POSE BIG THREAT Beyond the immediate damage from the shock itself, authorities braced for the destructive tidal waves known as tsunamis that Pacific quakes often generate. With an epicenter only 36 miles under the seabed, the Hokkaido quake was unusually shallow and was a prime candidate to spawn tidal waves that could cause a “great amount of damage,” said a scientist at the Geological Survey. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center reported that a 7-foot-high tidal wave had formed off the coast of Hanasaki on Hokkaido’s Pacific coast. A 5-foot-high tsunami formed off the coast at Urakawa, it said. Tsunami warnings were in effect for Japan, Russia and much of the Pacific rim as far east as Alaska. Tsunami watches were in effect for Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines and much of the central Pacific east to Hawaii. If the preliminary 8.0 rating is confirmed, the quake would equal the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which killed about 10,000 people. By comparison, the famous 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of San Francisco measured only 7.7.