Japan's series of earthquakes on Monday triggered a frantic evacuation from coastal areas. The Kishida government has set up a special emergency centre to overlook the crisis
A series of strong earthquakes hit Japan's western coastline on Monday, prompting authorities to issue a tsunami warning and asking locals to evacuate the coastal areas for safety reasons.
The Japan Meteorological Agency reported quakes off the coast of Ishikawa and nearby prefectures shortly after 4 pm, one of them with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6. Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV urged the public to flee to higher areas, warning that torrents of water could reach as high as 5 metres (16.5 feet). As per the local media, smaller tsunami waves were already confirmed to have reached the coastline, and it is feared that the tsunami waves could keep returning. Several aftershocks were also reported following the major quake.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government informed that the nuclear plants in the region had not reported any irregularities. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the government has set up a special emergency centre to gather information on the quakes and tsunami.
In the wake of the event, many social media users shared videos following the earthquake. A video surfaced on X (formerly Twitter), shared by 'The Spectator Index', showing a newsroom shaking vigorously as the people there ran to take shelter under tables. In the video, the shaking is seen to continue for over a minute.
In another video, shared by a user named '@crimewithbobby', people can be seen gathering at the centre of a road, leaving their cars behind as they take a moment to grasp the situation.
The same user shared yet another video, which appeared to be of a mall, where broken crockery sets piled up on the floor, supposedly in the aftermath of the quake. Media outlet NHK reported that some electric poles were toppled and roads were also cracked.
Another user @SonOfChoudhary shared a 8-second long video of large waves crashing on the shores, possibly triggered by the quake. The video has gained over a massive 174,000 views in an hour since it was posted.
Social media remained flooded with hashtags' Japan' and 'tsunami' trending massively as people expressed their worries over the situation and sympathised with the Japanese people, linking the event's occurrence, which coincided with the merry celebrations of New Year. Old videos of the deadly 2011 earthquake, which had killed nearly 18,000 people, also surfaced online. An old footage of the local media ANN news went viral, in which boats close to the shore were seen toppling due to the strong waves that soon spilled over on the roads washing away cars parked nearby, bringing back the grim memories of the decade old disaster.
Business Standard could not independently verify these videos.
Japan is a highly earthquake-prone country. Notably, the massive 2011 earthquake had led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, considered the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
(With inputs from AP)
 "Japan Earthquake")
