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Quake triggers small tsunami

At least 60 persons injured in Japan

SENDAI (JAPAN): A powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck north-eastern Japan on Tuesday and injured at least 60 persons, triggering a small tsunami, sending debris crashing into a crowded swimming pool and shaking skyscrapers as far away as Tokyo.

More than 200 persons, many of them children on summer vacation, were in the indoor pool in coastal Sendai city when the quake showered tiles and metal onto them, injuring 17, officials said.

Tumbling rocks and roof tiles hurt others elsewhere. TV news footage showed a collapsed house outside Tokyo and landslips in the quake-hit area, 300 km north of the capital. An area police spokesman said an 80-year-old woman was trapped and later rescued.

``The shaking felt like it lasted forever. It was scary thinking when it was going to end and what was going to happen,'' said a Sendai city official.

National broadcaster NHK said about 60 persons were reported injured. Officials were still tallying figures, but police in Miyagi prefecture, which bore the worst of the quake, could only confirm 26 injuries. Neighbouring Fukushima prefecture reported four.

``The horizontal shaking was very strong, so much so that I almost could not remain standing,'' said an official with Miyagi prefecture, of which Sendai is the capital. The quake knocked out power to about 17,000 households, while high-speed train services in the north were suspended and flights temporarily grounded at Tokyo's Haneda airport. Nippon Oil shut a Sendai refinery.

The quake struck at around 11:46 a.m. (08:16 IST) and was centred 20 km below the ocean floor about 80 km off the coast of Miyagi, the Meteorological Agency said. Two 10-cm tsunami waves hit the nearby coast shortly after noon, but officials expected little damage from the waves. — AP

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