{"id":203,"date":"2011-03-11T20:48:49","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T17:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/?p=203"},"modified":"2011-03-11T20:55:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-11T17:55:20","slug":"tokyo-haneda-airport-is-now-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/tokyo-haneda-airport-is-now-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo Haneda Airport is now open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tokyo’s Haneda airport<\/strong> was shut down, but is now open. <\/p>\n

Narita airport<\/strong> Narita airport now operating. Main two runways now open.<\/p>\n

Tokyo Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo<\/p>\n

When the earthquake hit, buildings in Tokyo swayed. Walking was like crossing the deck of a ship at sea.<\/p>\n

People poured down from their offices and stood in the street staring up.<\/p>\n

A large fire seemed to have broken out in one part of the city and, in another place, injured people were being brought out of a station.<\/p>\n

The authorities immediately issued a tsunami warning.<\/p>\n

In Tokyo, public transport has been suspended, elevators are switched off in many buildings and thousands of people have gathered in squares and around train stations.<\/p>\n

A tsunami warning was extended across the Pacific to North and South America.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross in Geneva warned that the tsunami waves could be higher than some Pacific islands, Reuters news agency said.<\/p>\n

Coastal areas in the Philippines, Hawaii and other Pacific islands were evacuated ahead of the tsunami\u2019s expected arrival.<\/p>\n

New Zealand later downgraded its alert to a marine threat, meaning strong and unusual currents were expected.<\/p>\n

Wall of waterStrong waves hit Japan\u2019s Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, officials said, damaging dozens of coastal communities.<\/p>\n

Kyodo news agency said a 10-metre wave (33ft) struck the port of Sendai in Miyagi.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s NHK television showed a massive surge of debris-filled water sweeping away buildings, cars and ships and reaching far inland.<\/p>\n

Motorists could be seen trying to speed away from the wall of water.<\/p>\n

Farmland around Sendai was submerged and the waves pushed cars across the runway of the city\u2019s airport. Fires broke out in the city\u2019s centre.<\/p>\n

Deadliest earthquakes<\/p>\n

27 July 1976, Tangshan, China: est 655,000 killed, 7.5<\/p>\n

26 Dec 2004, Sumatra, Indonesia: 9.1 quake and tsunami kills 227,898 across Pacific region<\/p>\n

12 Jan 2010, Haiti: 222,570 killed, 7.0<\/p>\n

12 May 2008, Sichuan, China: 87,587 killed, 7.9<\/p>\n

8 Oct 2005, Pakistan: 80,361 killed, 7.6<\/p>\n

31 May 1970 Chimbote, Peru: 70,000 killed, 7.9<\/p>\n

20 June 1990, Manjil, Iran: 40,000 killed, 7.4<\/p>\n

26 Dec 2003, Bam, Iran: 31,000 killed, 6.6<\/p>\n

26 Jan 2001, Gujarat, India: 20,023 killed, 7.7<\/p>\n

17 Aug 1999, Izmit, Turkey: 17,118 killed, 7.6<\/p>\n

30 Sep 1993 Latur, India: 9,748 killed, 6.2<\/p>\n

16 Jan 1995, Kobe, Japan: 5,530 dead, 6.9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another fire was reported to be burning in the turbine building of the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi prefecture.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said there had been no radiation leaks.<\/p>\n

Police and local officials said at least 32 people had been killed in the earthquake and tsunami. It is believed the death toll could rise significantly.<\/p>\n

A ship carrying 100 people was swept away, Japanese media reported, quoting police in Miyagi. It is not clear what happened to the ship and its passengers.<\/p>\n

In Iwate prefecture, also near the epicentre, an official said it was difficult to gauge the extent of the destruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoads were badly damaged and cut off as the tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things,\u201d said Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in Iwate.<\/p>\n

The earthquake also triggered a massive blaze at an oil refinery in Ichihara city in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, engulfing storage tanks.<\/p>\n

There were reports of about 20 people injured in Tokyo after the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n

Residents and workers in Tokyo rushed out of apartment buildings and office blocks and gathered in parks and open spaces as aftershocks continued to hit.<\/p>\n

Many people in Tokyo said they had never felt such a powerful earthquake.<\/p>\n

In central Tokyo, Jeffrey Balanag said he was stuck in his office in the Shiodome Sumitomo building because the elevators had stopped working.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no panic but we\u2019re almost seasick from the constant rolling of the building,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Bullet train services to northern Japan were halted and rapid transit in Tokyo was suspended, stranding many workers in the city centre.<\/p>\n

Narita airport outside Tokyo was initially closed but later opened for departing flights.<\/p>\n

About four million homes in and around Tokyo suffered power outages.<\/p>\n

In a televised address, Mr Kan extended his sympathy to the victims of the disaster and said an emergency response headquarters had been set up. (BBC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tokyo’s Haneda airport was shut down, but is now open. Narita airport Narita airport now operating. Main two runways now open. Tokyo Reports Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo When the earthquake hit, buildings in Tokyo swayed. Walking was like crossing the deck of a ship at sea. People poured down from their offices and stood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.haneda-airport.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}