watch live video Live »
At least thirty individuals were injured within the cities of Tokyo and Osaki, the Kyodo news service reported.
The wave drew a line of white fury across the ocean, heading toward the shoreline. Cars and trucks were still moving on highways because the water rushed toward them. The floodwaters, thick with floating debris shoved inland, brushed off significant trucks as if they were children's toys, in some places carrying blazing buildings towards factories, fields, highways, bridges and houses. The spectacle was all the exceptional for being carried carry on tv, as the waves engulfed flat farmland that offered no resistance. (See Pics: Japan earthquake triggers tsunami)
The force of the waves washed away cars on coastal roads and crashed into buildings along the shore, The Associate Press reported. tv footage showed a tsunami wave bearing down on the japanese coastline close to the community of Sendai.
NHK tv transmitted aerial pictures of giant billow of flame rising from an oil refinery and flood waters engulfing Sendai airport, where survivors clustered on the roof of the airport building. The runway was partially submerged. The refinery fireplace sent a plume of thick black smoke from blazing cylindrical storage tanks. A tv commentator known as the blaze an "inferno."
The images showed survivors during a home surrounded by water, waving white sheets from the higher floors of buildings. News reports said the earthquake had forced the Tokyo subways to empty whereas airports were closed and lots of residents took to the streets, desperately attempting to go away town.
A second major earthquake of seven.4 magnitude was reported as aftershocks shook the region. Japanese media reported portable networks weren't operating.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was magnitude eight.9, that the agency labeled a "mega" quake. The tremor occurred at regarding 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and at a depth of regarding fifteen miles.
The quake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time and its location was off Honshu, Japan's most populous island.
A tsunami warning was in impact for Japan, Russia, Marcus Island and therefore the Northern Marianas, consistent with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Japan's meteorological agency warned that a tsunami as high as twenty feet might strike the coast close to Miyagi prefecture, closest to the epicenter.
The Associated Press, citing public broadcaster NHK, reported that an outsized ship anxious by the tsunami rammed directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma town in Miyagi prefecture.
Japanese tv showed major tsunami injury in northern Japan. Video footage additionally showed buildings on fireplace within the Odaiba district of Tokyo, The Associated Press reported.
"It simply appeared to persist and on," Katherine Wallace told the BBC, who was in an workplace building in Tokyo, said of the quake tremor.
Several quakes have struck a similar region in recent days, as well as a seven.3 magnitude one on Wednesday.
The suspend Seng index in Hong Kong and therefore the Straits Times in Singapore slumped when news of the quake. each were regarding one.1 p.c lower by mid-afternoon.
