Aftershock fears heightened after 2nd 6.6. quake

TOKYO - Japan's Meteorological Agency says a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck the central, mountainous part of the country hours after a massive quake hit off the country's northeastern coast.

Dozens of aftershocks have rattled Japan's northeast since Friday's magnitude 8.9 temblor, but the most recent quake was in an entirely different location.

The latest quake hit early Saturday at a depth of six miles, about 105 miles north of Tokyo.

It caused buildings in Tokyo to sway. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Earlier, a ferocious tsunami spawned by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded slammed Japan's eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds as it swept away boats, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control. Tsunami warnings blanketed the entire Pacific, as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire U.S. West Coast.

The death toll is expected to exceed 1,000, Kyodo news agency said Saturday. The defense ministry said 1,800 houses had been destroyed in Fukushima prefecture, Kyodo reported.

Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicenter. Another 178 were confirmed killed, with 584 missing. Police also said 947 people were injured.

Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.

A Japanese coast guard official said a search is under way for a ship carrying 80 dock workers that was swept away by the tsunami. The vessel was washed away from a shipbuilding site in Miyagi prefecture, close to the earthquake's epicenter.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan had closed four nuclear power plants as a precaution. A state of emergency was declared at one of the plants after its cooling system had a mechanical failure.

Authorities said they would release slightly radioactive vapor to ease the pressure that built up at a nuclear power plant after a cooling system failed. They said the vapor would not affect the environment or human health.

The government ordered thousands of residents near the plant in the city of Onahama to move back at least two miles from the No.1 reactor at its Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant. The plant is 170 miles northeast of Tokyo. Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the emergency measure at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima was a precaution and that the facility was not in immediate danger.

Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles inland before retreating. The apocalyptic images of surging water broadcast by Japanese TV networks resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Large fishing boats and other sea vessels rode high waves into the cities, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged vehicles were seen bobbing in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.

The highways to the worst-hit coastal areas were severely damaged and communications, including telephone lines, were snapped. Train services in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were also suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

The quake was the strongest ever recorded in the highly seismically active archipelago, Japan's meteorological agency said. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in Tokyo and its vicinity, which killed more than 140,000 people, registered 8.3.

The most serious earthquake of the past several decades struck near Kobe in January 1995, killing more than 6,000 people and measured a 7.2.

Japan has strict urban building codes requiring buildings to withstand even the most massive quakes and has prepared extensively for major earthquakes like Friday's. But the toll of any quake -- in damage and in lives -- is unpredictable, depending on timing, location and the presence of older buildings that don't meet modern earthquake standards, among other factors.

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