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CNN Live At Daybreak
Powerful Earthquake Hits Japan
Aired September 26, 2003 - 05:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And across the globe now to Japan, where a powerful earthquake almost 14 hours ago rattled that nation's northernmost island. The fear now in Hokkaido is quake aftershocks.
Our Tokyo bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon joins us now on the telephone with more -- Rebecca.
REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
Well, the current toll of people injured has risen to 314, but no people were killed as a direct result of the quake. Only one man hit by a car after he went out into the street to clear up some debris. There were about 24 people seriously injured, the rest fairly minor, leg breaks and so forth.
Now, 40,000 people were evacuated from along the coast because of fear of tsunami tidal waves. Those concerns have now died down, but schools and public buildings were full of people who had been evacuated and there is a still unknown number of people whose homes have had some serious damage and they may not be able to move back home right away.
Now, even though this was a potentially deadly eight magnitude, it did not kill people because it was substantially off the coast, about 50 miles, and then about 20 miles under the sea bed. So that is the reason why such a large magnitude did not actually end up killing people. A magnitude, an earthquake of less magnitude in 1995 killed about 6,000 in southern Japan. So the people of Hokkaido have been lucky today -- Carol.
LIN: Rebecca, we're looking at some video that ran on NHK, the Japanese network out there. It seemed like the shaking lasted for a long, long time.
MACKINNON: Yes, that's true, Carol, and it's interesting to note, as well, that because Japan is such an earthquake prone country, the news stations all have cameras going 24 hours a day to capture this kind of quake. Now, yes, it did last a long time. There was a lot of damage to property, a lot of damage in stores, a lot of windows shattered and so forth. And right now the cost of all that is still being tallied, but fortunately no human permanent casualties -- Carol.
LIN: An 8.0 on the scale of earthquakes is absolutely huge, I mean much bigger than the Loma Prieta, the San Francisco earthquake here in the United States. People might remember that. I'm just wondering, how are people reacting to this? Are people able to get in touch with relatives in that location? MACKINNON: Well, apparently the authorities had worked out an emergency text messaging system through cell phones that helped people get through to relatives faster than they might otherwise have been able to, because power was out in quite a number of locations along that coast. Now, Japan, of course, is quite used to the earthquakes, not usually of this size, but still there is a great deal of preparedness and everybody lives with the reality that something like that could hit Tokyo at some point. It's something that people deal with and there are some systems in place.
But if it had been a direct hit and not off the coast, then there would be a lot of panic -- Carol.
LIN: All right, we're just looking -- just amazed at the damage that we're seeing here on this videotape.
Thank you very much, Rebecca MacKinnon, reporting live on the Hokkaido earthquake there, where hundreds have been injured. But so far no reports of any death from a magnitude eight earthquake. Huge.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 26, 2003 - 05:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And across the globe now to Japan, where a powerful earthquake almost 14 hours ago rattled that nation's northernmost island. The fear now in Hokkaido is quake aftershocks.
Our Tokyo bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon joins us now on the telephone with more -- Rebecca.
REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
Well, the current toll of people injured has risen to 314, but no people were killed as a direct result of the quake. Only one man hit by a car after he went out into the street to clear up some debris. There were about 24 people seriously injured, the rest fairly minor, leg breaks and so forth.
Now, 40,000 people were evacuated from along the coast because of fear of tsunami tidal waves. Those concerns have now died down, but schools and public buildings were full of people who had been evacuated and there is a still unknown number of people whose homes have had some serious damage and they may not be able to move back home right away.
Now, even though this was a potentially deadly eight magnitude, it did not kill people because it was substantially off the coast, about 50 miles, and then about 20 miles under the sea bed. So that is the reason why such a large magnitude did not actually end up killing people. A magnitude, an earthquake of less magnitude in 1995 killed about 6,000 in southern Japan. So the people of Hokkaido have been lucky today -- Carol.
LIN: Rebecca, we're looking at some video that ran on NHK, the Japanese network out there. It seemed like the shaking lasted for a long, long time.
MACKINNON: Yes, that's true, Carol, and it's interesting to note, as well, that because Japan is such an earthquake prone country, the news stations all have cameras going 24 hours a day to capture this kind of quake. Now, yes, it did last a long time. There was a lot of damage to property, a lot of damage in stores, a lot of windows shattered and so forth. And right now the cost of all that is still being tallied, but fortunately no human permanent casualties -- Carol.
LIN: An 8.0 on the scale of earthquakes is absolutely huge, I mean much bigger than the Loma Prieta, the San Francisco earthquake here in the United States. People might remember that. I'm just wondering, how are people reacting to this? Are people able to get in touch with relatives in that location? MACKINNON: Well, apparently the authorities had worked out an emergency text messaging system through cell phones that helped people get through to relatives faster than they might otherwise have been able to, because power was out in quite a number of locations along that coast. Now, Japan, of course, is quite used to the earthquakes, not usually of this size, but still there is a great deal of preparedness and everybody lives with the reality that something like that could hit Tokyo at some point. It's something that people deal with and there are some systems in place.
But if it had been a direct hit and not off the coast, then there would be a lot of panic -- Carol.
LIN: All right, we're just looking -- just amazed at the damage that we're seeing here on this videotape.
Thank you very much, Rebecca MacKinnon, reporting live on the Hokkaido earthquake there, where hundreds have been injured. But so far no reports of any death from a magnitude eight earthquake. Huge.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
