{"id":24626,"date":"2016-04-15T02:40:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/japan-earthquake-forces-evacuation-of-40-000\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T02:39:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:39:54","slug":"japan-earthquake-forces-evacuation-of-40-000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/japan-earthquake-forces-evacuation-of-40-000\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan earthquake forces evacuation of 40,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

{At least nine killed and nearly 1,000 injured after 6.2-magnitude earthquake strikes 11km east of Kumamoto city.}<\/p>\n

At least nine people have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake knocked down houses and destroyed roads in the southwestern Japan.<\/p>\n

The tremor struck 11km east of Kumamoto on Thursday, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), and strong aftershocks continued to shake the area around the city on Friday.<\/p>\n

More than 40,000 people were evacuated to schools and community centres, some spending the night outside after the first quake hit around 9:30pm local time.<\/p>\n

Roads cracked, houses crumbled and tiles fell from the roof of Kumamoto Castle in the centre of the city.<\/p>\n

Troops despatched<\/p>\n

More than 3,000 troops, police and firemen were dispatched to the area from around Japan, and Shinzo Abe, prime minister, said more would be sent if needed.<\/p>\n

One of the victims in Mashiki died after being pulled from the rubble, and the other was killed in a fire.<\/p>\n

Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed firefighters tackling a blaze in a building in Mashiki, a town of about 34,000 people near the epicentre of the quake.<\/p>\n

About 16,500 households in and around Mashiki were without electricity, according to Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc.<\/p>\n

There were no irregularities at three nuclear plants on the southern major island of Kyushu and nearby Shikoku, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said.<\/p>\n

The plant is 130km south of Kumamoto. The operator restarted the reactors last year, the first two units under updated regulations.<\/p>\n

Tsunami of 2011<\/p>\n

In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake led to a devastating tsunami that killed 18,000 people along Japan’s northeast coast.<\/p>\n

The wave struck the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing a major radiation leakage. <\/p>\n

More than 100,000 displaced people are still unable to return to their homes near the nuclear plant because of the contamination.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{At least nine killed and nearly 1,000 injured after 6.2-magnitude earthquake strikes 11km east of Kumamoto city.} At least nine people have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake knocked down houses and destroyed roads in the southwestern Japan. The tremor struck 11km east of Kumamoto on Thursday, according to the US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24626"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24626"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}