7.8 Quake Rocks Japan; 36 Die, 100 Missing : Disaster: Undersea temblor 50 miles off coast is followed by several strong aftershocks. Fires and tidal waves result.

A 7.8 earthquake struck northern Japan on Monday, setting hundreds of houses ablaze and triggering tidal waves that destroyed homes and boats as far away as South Korea. At least 36 people were killed, and more than 100 were reported missing.

The quake was centered 30 miles under the Sea of Japan and about 50 miles west of Hokkaido, the nation’s third most populous island with 5.65 million people. Several strong aftershocks followed in the same area.

Police confirmed 36 dead, basing their information on incomplete reports from villages along the coast. They said the number of casualties was expected to rise.

Kyodo News Service reported that at least 104 people were missing--most believed to be buried in landslides or swept away by tidal waves.

Tidal waves reported to be 16 feet high lashed wide areas of the Japanese coast, sweeping away scores of small wooden houses and destroying small fishing boats moored at ports along the coasts of both Japan and South Korea.

Worst-hit by the quake was Okushiri, a small island just 30 miles south of the epicenter.

Kyodo said the island’s two-story wooden Yoyoso Hotel collapsed, killing at least five people and leaving about 20 missing. The public television network NHK reported that six or seven people were rescued from the burning hotel.

About 300 houses were ablaze on another part of the island of 4,600 people. A number of houses were reported washed away by tidal waves.

Television footage showed pandemonium on the island, with pajama-clad people trying to rig hoses to fight blazes while other residents prayed and cried as they gathered on a hillside and watched their town burn.

By morning, the town of Okushiri was reduced to smoking rubble. A few roofs sat above the smoldering ashes of wooden houses.

Three hundred Japanese troops joined in rescue efforts on Okushiri, NHK said.

Tidal waves wrecked about 60 small fishing boats along South Korea’s east coast, more than 600 miles from the quake’s epicenter, said South Korea’s Central Anti-Disaster Headquarters. Newspaper reports said the waves were about 15 feet high.

Elsewhere in Hokkaido, houses were knocked off their foundations, their weak wooden walls reduced to splinters. Roads were cracked and buckled, and store shelves emptied of their contents.

In northern Japan, Kyodo said, two people were killed in landslides, a woman was killed by a tidal wave and a town official was killed when his car overturned in an aftershock.

In villages on the west coast of Hokkaido, 12 people were missing in tidal waves that swept away 30 houses, NHK said. In another town, 10 people were injured by collapsing houses, it added.

The quake was not felt in Tokyo, 500 miles to the south.

On Okushiri, aftershocks were frightening already-edgy residents. The meteorological agency reported aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.4 at 11:36 p.m. and 6.3 at 1:12 a.m. today.

NHK had warned people to evacuate northern Japanese coastal areas immediately after the quake hit at 10:17 p.m. (6:17 a.m. PDT). Four hours later, it reported that waves were receding.

Japan Quake’s Wicked Waves

The major quake that hit northern Japan unleashed tidal waves that washed away dozens of homes. Such waves, called tsunamis, are triggered by massive earthquakes that occur under water.

1) Tsunamis are generated by massive underwater earthquakes and are common around the Pacific.

The destructive waves can travel at 435 m.p.h.

2) The waves move inland from deep ocean to shallow water, growing larger.

Individual waves may occur at intervals of 15 minutes, or 125 miles apart.

3) Approaching a coast, the waves slow down, bunch up and rise. They may rise as high as a 10-story building.

When the waves break, they can cause great destruction.

Source: The Random House Encyclopedia, Our Violent Earth