Earthquake in central Japan injures at least 22 and shatters shop windows

An earthquake struck central Japan overnight, injuring at least 22 people, breaking shop windows and sending residents out of buildings, The Times of Israel reported, carrying an Associated Press dispatch from Tokyo that cited local Japanese media for the injury figure. Some of those hurt had fallen on stairs as they tried to get out, according to that report.

The quake hit at 1:04 a.m. at a depth of about 40 kilometres (25 miles) beneath Shizuoka Prefecture. Israeli outlets also picked up the story: N12's foreign desk, citing AP, reported a magnitude 5.5 tremor that was felt in Aichi Prefecture and in the cities of Kyoto and Nara, and Ynet's news alerts channel gave the same magnitude and the same minimum of 22 injured.

Two agencies, two magnitudes

The reports do not agree on how strong the earthquake was. According to the AP account, the Japan Meteorological Agency measured it at magnitude 5.7, while the US Geological Survey put it at 5.5. The two Hebrew-language reports used the 5.5 figure.

For readers unfamiliar with the bodies involved: the Japan Meteorological Agency is the Japanese government office responsible for weather forecasting and for monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis in the country, and it is the source Japanese authorities rely on. The US Geological Survey is an American federal science agency that monitors earthquakes around the world. The reports here do not explain the gap between the two readings or say whether either figure has since been revised.

Where the shaking was felt

The area affected was broad. The AP report lists the region around Aichi Prefecture, the city of Hamamatsu, the former imperial capitals of Kyoto and Nara, and the prefectures of Yamanashi, home to Mount Fuji, and Gifu. Aichi and Shizuoka border each other, and official seismic readings showed the strongest shaking in Aichi.

Japan's prefectures are its main administrative regions, roughly comparable to states or provinces. Shizuoka and Aichi sit on the Pacific side of the main island, between Tokyo to the east and the Kyoto and Nara area to the west. According to the AP account, the affected zone was far enough from Tokyo that residents of the capital did not feel the tremor.

Smaller aftershocks followed the main quake, the AP dispatch said, without giving their number or strength.

Damage seen on television

Images broadcast on Japanese television showed broken glass from shop fronts lying across streets, according to the AP report. In one bookstore, volumes thrown from the shelves by the shaking were left piled on the floor.

None of the three reports describes structural collapse, fires or damage to infrastructure, and none reports any deaths. The injuries described were the kind associated with people hurrying to leave buildings in the middle of the night rather than with buildings failing.

How this was reported in Israel

The event reached Israeli audiences through brief alerts on the Telegram channels of Ynet and N12, two of the country's largest news outlets, and through a live blog entry on The Times of Israel, an English-language Israeli news site. All three relied on the Associated Press, and the AP in turn attributed the injury count to Japanese local media. In practice, then, the figure of at least 22 injured traces back to a single chain of reporting rather than to separate counts.

What the reports do not say

• No official casualty figure from Japanese national or prefectural authorities is cited; the injury count comes from local media via AP, and the reports give no breakdown of how seriously people were hurt.
• The reports do not explain why the Japanese and US magnitude readings differ, or whether either has been updated.
• No information is given on whether a tsunami warning was considered or issued, on disruption to transport, or on the scale of the aftershocks.