Tokyo, Nov. 8 (Jiji Press)–A powerful earthquake measuring up to upper 5, the fourth-highest level on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, jolted Aichi Prefecture and other parts of central Japan on Sunday, injuring 22 people. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5.7 occurred around 1:04 a.m. at a depth of 41 kilometers in the western part of Shizuoka Prefecture, which neighbors Aichi. No tsunami was triggered by the quake. The city of Chita in Aichi registered upper 5 on the seismic intensity scale, while lower 5 was logged in the city of Seto in the same prefecture, the village of Urugi in Nagano Prefecture, the city of Ena in Gifu Prefecture and the city of Hamamatsu in Shizuoka. According to the Aichi prefectural government and other sources, a woman in her 50s in the city of Hekinan in Aichi fell while evacuating outdoors and broke her left ankle, and 18 others in the prefecture were slightly injured. In Shizuoka, three people were also slightly injured. At a showroom of an imported-car dealership in the city of Toyohashi in Aichi, where a seismic intensity of 4 was recorded, a roughly 4-meter-high window facing a prefectural road was shattered almost completely. Gaku Kusayanagi, 59, a senior official of the company that operates the dealership, said: “It’s a shock, but fortunately, no employees were injured because it happened in the middle of the night. We hope to resume operations after confirming the facility’s safety.” Bullet trains on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line, operated by Central Japan Railway Co., or JR Tokai, ran at reduced speeds between Shizuoka Station and Gifu-Hashima Station from the start of Sunday’s service to around 9 a.m. to check safety. According to JR Tokai, 29 inbound and outbound trains were delayed by up to 52 minutes. Ayataka Ebita, director of the agency’s Earthquake and Tsunami Observation Division, told a news conference that the latest quake occurred within the ocean-side plate that is sinking beneath the land-side plate and differs in mechanism from an earthquake in the Nankai Trough in the Pacific off central to western Japan, which occurs when the boundary between plates suddenly slips. Since the magnitude of Sunday’s quake was relatively small, it is unlikely to bring about any particular change in the boundary between the plates, Ebita said. “People in areas that experienced strong shaking should remain alert for earthquakes registering up to upper 5 over the next week,” he added. It was the first time in about 30 years that a seismic intensity of upper 5 or higher was observed in Aichi since the 5.9 magnitude earthquake in the eastern part of the prefecture in March 1997. The stronger shaking in Aichi than in the latest quake’s source area in western Shizuoka was believed to have been caused by factors including local ground conditions. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
