19 dead as huge tsunami hits Japan after massive quake

TOKYO: The biggest earthquake to hit Japan in 140 years struck the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that swept away everything in its path, including houses, cars and farm buildings on fire, media and witnesses said.

The death toll from the earthquake has reached 19, press reports said. The dead included a 67-year-old man crushed by a wall and an elderly woman killed by a fallen roof, both in the wider Tokyo area, press reports said.

Three were crushed to death when their houses collapsed in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. 

The magnitude 8.9 offshore quake was followed by at least 19 aftershocks, most of them of more than magnitude 6.0. Dozens of cities and villages along the 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the country's eastern shore were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter in the sea off the northeastern coast.

The National Police Agency, charged with compiling nationwide data on natural disasters, could not immediately confirm the figures.

"The damage is so enormous that it will take us much time to gather data," an official at the agency said.

In Fukushima prefecture, four million homes were without power. The 8.9 magnitude quake caused many injuries, public broadcaster NHK said, sparked fires and the wall of water, prompting warnings to people to move to higher ground in coastal areas. ( Japan nuclear plants shut after quake )