Japanese authorities have begun cleaning up in the aftermath of a massive 7.4-magnitude earthquake that killed four people and injured more than 100 others near Fukushima, the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
The incident occurred in the eastern region of the Asian nation on Wednesday night and caused power outages to millions of homes. One of the casualties was identified to be a man in his 60s who lived in the city of Soma, based on an announcement by the local disaster prevention office on Thursday.
Massive 7.4 Earthquake
The massive quake hit off the coast of Japan's eastern Fukushima prefecture, which is a region that was previously devastated by a powerful tremor and tsunami 11 years ago that later caused a nuclear power plant meltdown. After the Wednesday quake, officials issued a tsunami advisory for the coastal prefectures of Fukushima and Miyagi.
However, authorities quickly lifted the advisory on Thursday morning and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that there were no abnormalities detected at any of the country's nuclear plants. Japan's Meteorological Agency noted that the quake had a preliminary epicenter depth of roughly 60 kilometers, as per CNN.
The United States National Weather Service (NWS) said that there was no threat of a tsunami for the U.S. West Coast, British Columbia, or Alaska resulting from the earthquake. The NHK national television said that tsunami waves of roughly eight inches reached shore in Ishinomaki, which was about 242 miles northeast of Tokyo.
The 2011 quake killed more than 22,000 people and the recent tremor occurred just days before the 11th anniversary of the incident. Previous reports noted that the earthquake at the time had a magnitude of 9.1, roughly 63 times more powerful, and released roughly 500 times more energy than the recent occurrence.
According to USA Today, in a statement, officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant where the cooling systems failed after the 2011 disaster, said that workers inspected the site as it was in the process of being decommissioned.
Cleanup After the Incident
On Thursday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that the cause of death of the four fatalities was being investigated. There were also reports of a man in his 70s who panicked and suffered a heart attack during the massive earthquake.
The day after the tremor, residents in hard-hit areas found new damages in their areas and began cleaning their homes, placing fallen furniture and appliances back into their original locations before scooping up broken dishes and windows.
In the Fukushima prefecture, at a hotel in Yabuki town, the wall could be seen broken and the front door thrown out of place due to the quake. Dishes were also left destroyed and employees were starting to clean up the mess.
Hotel president Mineyuki Otake said in an interview that he was not even sure of where they would begin their cleanup. Video footage showed broken walls of a department store that have fallen to the ground with shards of windows scattered about across the street, KTSM reported.
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