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![Four people have been killed and dozens injured in the earthquake that hit northern Japan [AFP]](http://mwcnews.net/images/stories/Sci-Tech/2/3/4/Japan-earthquake.jpg "Four people have been killed and dozens injured in the earthquake that hit northern Japan [AFP]") | | Four people have been killed and dozens injured in the earthquake that hit northern Japan [AFP] |
A powerful earthquake has struck northern Japan, killing four people, injuring more than 100 others and trapping guests at a resort buried by a landslide.
The earthquake, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, also caused a leak of radioactive water from a power plant. Officials said the amount was too small to be cause for public concern.
Saturday's quake affected a largely agricultural region in northern Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. It was strong enough to shake buildings in Tokyo 500km, to the south, and was followed by around 100 aftershocks. A landslide near badly hit Kurihara city destroyed a forest hot-spring resort.
Five people were rescued, two with broken bones, but at least 12 people remain missing, police said. The government said that four people were killed and 65 were injured, while NHK, the public broadcaster, put the number of injured at 120.
The toll could rise further as at least three construction workers were feared buried under rubble, Ryo Kurosawa, a Kurihara official, said.
Worker killed
The dead included a 48-year-old construction worker who was hit by rocks while working on a dam project and a 55-year-old man who was buried by a landslide as he went fishing.
The other victim, a 60-year-old man, "rushed out of the house when the quake hit but was run over by a truck", Nobutaka Machimura, the chief government spokesman, said in Tokyo.
Sendai, the nearest large city to the earthquake's epicentre, appeared to be unaffected by the tremor.
Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's powerful earthquakes and has built an infrastructure intended to withstand the impact of tremors.
Military deployed
The government deployed the military to help assist in relief efforts, while Shinya Izumi, the minister for disaster management, flew to the scene.  "The top priority is to save lives. We are doing our best in rescue operations," Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said.
The injured included 17 passengers on a bus that plunged into a pond due to a landslide, NHK said.
NHK flashed an alert moments before the quake struck, as part of a new warning system.
In Ohsu city, around five children were cut by shattered glass at a child-care centre.
More than 20,000 houses were without power across northern Japan after the initial earthquake, which struck just 8km underground.
Radioactive water
Up to 14.8 litres of water leaked out from a pool in a warehouse that kept radioactive waste at Tepco's Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, an official at the plant said.
"No water has leaked outside of the warehouse," the official said.
Tepco's two nuclear plants in Fukushima, including Fukushima Daini, were operating normally, Asia's bigest power company said.
The two plants have a combined power capacity of 9,096MW.
Japan suspended service of its bullet trains to the north of the country as a precaution, forcing some 2,000 passengers to evacuate stopped trains by foot.
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