TOKYO, Oct 24 (AFP) - A series of powerful earthquakes in central Japan, including an initial tremor measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, left 18 people dead or missing and injured more than 800, police said Sunday.
A police spokesman in Niigata Prefecture, where the quake hit late Saturday, said 16 people were confirmed dead and two missing. Public broadcaster NHK, Kyodo News and Jiji Press said all 18 were dead, with NHK putting the injury toll at 1,400.
More than 240 aftershocks struck Niigata, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Tokyo, after the first quake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit Saturday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
It warned there was a 10-percent probability of aftershocks above 6.0 on the Richter scale hitting Niigata within three days. Some 57,700 residents in Niigata have been evacuated, NHK said.
Some 173,000 households remained without electricity, a spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co. said.
The quakes, the deadliest in almost a decade, hit as Japan was still reeling from the onslaught on Wednesday of the deadliest typhoon in a quarter century, Tokage, which killed at least 79 people.
10/24/2004 04:59 GMT - AFP