Japan Begins Recovery From 7.5 Quake : Disaster: Two people were killed and 425 injured by offshore temblor, the strongest to hit nation in a decade.

Workers began clearing rubble from streets and restoring power to dozens of homes Saturday, a day after the worst earthquake to hit Japan in 10 years.

The temblor, which had a magnitude of 7.5, killed two people, injured 425 and did widespread damage to buildings, bridges and roads in the fishery port of Kushiro on the rural, northern island of Hokkaido, police said.

Kushiro, a city of 17,000, was the nearest town to the quake’s epicenter, located deep under the floor of the Pacific Ocean, 12 miles offshore.

The quake was strong enough to sway buildings in Tokyo, 530 miles to the south.

Twenty-six hours after the quake, water service remained disrupted in about 300 locations, 500 homes were without electricity and 9,300 others were without gas in the Kushiro area, city officials said.

The Central Meteorological Agency said dozens of aftershocks were recorded by Saturday morning, when they began subsiding.

The quake was the strongest to rock Japan since a temblor with a magnitude of 7.7 hit the central coast in May, 1983, killing 104 people.

Police said a 65-year-old man was killed Friday trying to protect his handicapped wife from a falling chandelier. They said a 76-year-old woman died Saturday from a gas leak apparently caused by the quake.

Television footage showed a private home resting precariously on its side after the land underneath collapsed into a sinkhole of mud and dirt.

One reporter delivered a live report from a fire station in Kushiro whose roof had been reduced to a pile of concrete debris.

Police said the quake badly damaged five bridges and 40 buildings and homes, triggered four landslides and cracked open roads at 16 locations. Seven fires also broke out, they said.

Japan has been rocked by more than 20 quakes with magnitudes of 7 or more since the end of World War II.

An earthquake of 7 is considered capable of widespread, heavy damage in populated areas.