A powerful earthquake struck Japan’s west coast, killing at least 4 people

As morning dawns in Japan, the country begins to survey the damage after a series of major new year’s day earthquakes and subsequent tsunami warnings.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

A powerful earthquake has struck Japan’s west coast, killing at least four people and triggering tsunami warnings.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Whoa. Run (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

KELLY: This was the moment that the earthquake hit a shrine complex in the region. The ground started swaying. People screamed in fear, and then the shrine columns collapsed and shattered. The earthquake has erased New Year’s festivities. Japan’s government is telling people to remain vigilant about possible further quakes. NPR’s Anthony Kuhn joins us from Seoul. Hey there, Anthony.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So that moment we just heard when the quake hit – tell me more about what happened in that moment.

KUHN: Well, this was just after 4 p.m. local time. It was in Ishikawa Prefecture on Japan’s west coast. And as you could hear, a 7.6 magnitude quake shakes things pretty hard. People were crouching on floors. They were running out of buildings. They were covering their heads. Tsunami warnings were issued for pretty much the length of the west coast on Japan’s main islands. The quake was also felt in Tokyo, and there were even tsunami warnings as far away as North and South Korea as well as cities in Russia’s far east.

KELLY: And what about damage? What do we know?

KUHN: Well, it got dark just after the quake. The sun has just come up now in Japan, and the extent of the damage will become clear. But we know that some buildings on the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture collapsed, injuring or burying some people. Many homes lost water and electricity. Some cellphone networks went down. At least one big fire was started. Also, streets and roads buckled. There was some flooding and…