JOIN USMillions in dark after Japan quake
The aftershock on Thursday night prompted a tsunami alert, raised fears of new strains on the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and knocked out external power at three other nuclear facilities.
The public broadcaster, NHK, said two people had died in Miyagi and Yamagata, including a 63-year-old woman whose ventilator stopped working in the blackout. Many more were injured. Of about 3.6 million households initially affected, 950,000 were still without power on Friday afternoon, The Associated Press reported.
No tsunami was detected, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The aftershock had a magnitude of 7.1, according to the United States Geological Survey; last month’s quake, which devastated much of the northeastern coast, was measured at 9.0.
But the agency warned of more aftershocks going forward. Many coastal communities were ravaged last month, and some have become even more vulnerable to tsunami waves because sea walls were breached and land levels sank.
Early on Friday, injuries were reported in Sendai City and across the region, and blackouts continued in some areas, according to NHK. Five coal-powered power plants also shut down, adding to concerns over energy shortages.
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were told to take cover until the tsunami warning was lifted, but Japanese officials said at a news conference that water was still able to be pumped into three damaged reactors and a spent-fuel pool at a fourth in the crucial effort to keep their nuclear fuel cool. The plant’s cooling systems were knocked out by last month’s quake and tsunami.
Nitrogen also continued to be piped into the No 1 reactor, the company said, in an effort to prevent a possible explosion.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the power station, said on Friday that it had found no new damage to the plant, and workers had resumed work to identify the source of leaks, found last week, of radioactive water into pipes and tunnels under the complex.
Monitoring posts at the plant were not showing any immediate increase in radiation levels, the company said.
A big aftershock is thought to pose an additional risk to the Fukushima plant because its containment structures, now filled with water that is highly radioactive, may be more vulnerable to rupture, according to an assessment by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in late March.
The temblor has also underscored the sensitivity of other power plants in the region to seismic shocks.
Two other nuclear facilities — a fuel reprocessing plant at Rokkasho and a power plant at Higashidori, both in northern Aomori Prefecture — ran temporarily on emergency diesel generators after their external power was knocked out. Grid power was restored at both plants on Friday morning.