TOKYO - A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake rattled Japan on Monday, killing two people and injuring more than 150 as it toppled houses, triggered mudslides and set off a blaze at a nuclear power plant.
In the hardest-hit areas of central Japan northwest of Tokyo, houses were reduced to rubble and a bridge was nearly cracked in two by the force of the mid-morning quake, Japanese television footage showed.
The government set up a crisis-management centre after the quake, which was powerful enough to shake skyscrapers and knock goods off the shelves of stores in the capital more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) away from the epicentre.
Officials said they were hunting for survivors after the quake, which triggered 50-centimetre (20-inch) tsunami waves that hit the Japanese coast within minutes. Several aftershocks followed.
"When the earthquake hit, I was out on my boat and I felt this swing," said Susumu Ishiguro, the owner of a fishing gear shop in the worst-hit city of Kashiwazaki.
"I came back to the port and I found my house was a complete mess. I think all the old houses got crushed," he told AFP by telephone.
Service on Japan`s famed bullet trains was suspended as a precaution while Niigata airport temporarily closed its runways to check for damage.
Television footage showed flames billowing at a nuclear power plant in Kashiwazaki although there was no apparent risk of radiation.
Plant officials said the fire was in the part supplying electricity to the facility and that the four reactors automatically shut down following the jolt.
"The fire occurred at a transformer, which is not located close to the reactors," said Yasushi Hasegawa, an official of the firm that runs the facility.
Two women, both in their 80s, died after sustaining injuries in the quake, said an official of Kashiwazaki Chuo Hospital. Officials said at least 155 others were treated at other area hospitals.
The quake also triggered mudslides in Kashiwazaki, where soil was already loose after a major typhoon over the weekend that left four people dead or missing and flooded hundreds of homes across Japan.
On the Japanese scale which measures seismic intensity, the earthquake registered six out of seven, meaning it had the potential to cause damage.
Japan lies at the junction of four tectonic plates and endures about 20 percent of the world`s most powerful earthquakes.
Niigata was the scene of a major 6.8 Richter-scale earthquake in October 2004. Forty-six people were killed, many of them elderly who suffered fatigue and stress as they stayed in shelters and felt hundreds of aftershocks.
The 2004 Niigata earthquake was Japan`s deadliest since January 1995, when a 7.3-magnitude tremor destroyed much of the western metropolis of Kobe, killing more than 6,400 people.
07/16/2007 04:45 GMT