Strong typhoon winds lash Tokyo area, causing transport chaos

TOKYO - One of the strongest typhoons to hit the Japanese capital in recent years made landfall just east of Tokyo on Monday with record-breaking winds, stinging rain and sending some rivers close to the top of their banks before heading out to sea.

More than 130 flights were cancelled and scores of train lines were closed for hours, snarling the morning commute for millions in a greater Tokyo area that has a population of some 36 million. Authorities warned it was dangerous to venture outside.

Typhoon Faxai, a Laotian woman's name, slammed ashore in the city of Chiba, just east of Tokyo, a little before dawn, bringing with it wind gusts of 207 kph in Chiba, the strongest ever recorded there, national broadcaster NHK said.

There were no immediate reports of deaths and only one serious injury, a woman in her 20s who had to be rescued from her house after it was partly crushed when a metal pole from a golf driving range fell on it.

"There was a huge grinding noise, I couldn't figure out what it was. Then I looked out the window," a neighbor told NHK.

Some minor landslides occurred and a bridge was washed away, while as many as 930,000 houses lost power at one point, NHK said, including the entire city of Kamogawa.

"I've never seen a situation like this, the whole city without power," an official told NHK.

The storm had headed out to sea by midmorning but authorities warned that heavy rains were likely to continue for some hours, including in Fukushima, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

WIND SHAKES BUILDINGS

Around 4 to 5 typhoons make landfall in Japan every year, but it is unusual for them to do so near Tokyo. NHK said Faxai was the strongest storm in the Tokyo area in several years.

Winds were occasionally strong enough to shake street signs and buildings in the neighboring city of Ichikawa early on Monday morning, while biting rain fell. Streets normally busy with commuters walking or bicycling to the train station were deserted.

Metal signs were torn from the sides of buildings, trucks overturned, the metal roof of a gas station torn off and glass display cases destroyed, scattering sidewalks with broken glass. Twenty-four hour fast food restaurants in central Tokyo closed, protecting their windows with plywood.

Trees were uprooted throughout the metropolitan area, some falling on train tracks to further snarl transportation.

Some 2,000 people were ordered to evacuate because of the danger of landslides, NHK said, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.

Parts of the Tokaido Shinkansen line were briefly halted but service resumed after several hours. It took hours for other lines to resume, packing stations with impatient commuters fanning themselves in the humid air.

Temperatures were set to shoot up to unseasonably hot levels in the wake of the storm, with 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 Fahrenheit) predicted in Tokyo, prompting authorities to warn of the danger of heatstroke.

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Japan studio boss at loss for words as he mourns young staff at torched building

KYOTO, Japan - Many victims of an arson attack on an animation studio in the western Japanese city of Kyoto were young with bright futures, some joining only in April, the company president said on Saturday, as the death told climbed to 34.

Thursday's attack on Kyoto Animation, famous in Japan and overseas for its series and movies, was the worst mass killing in two decades in a country with some of the world's lowest crime rates.

Company president Hideaki Hatta said many of the victims were young women.

"Some of them joined us just in April. And on the eighth of July, I gave them a small, but their first, bonus," he said.

"People who had a promising future lost their lives. I don't know what to say. Rather than feeling anger, I just don't have words," Hatta said.

Fifteen of the victims were in their 20s and 11 were in their 30s, public broadcaster NHK said. Six were in their 40s and one was at least 60. The age of the latest victim, a man who died in hospital, was not known. The names of the victims have not been disclosed.

The studio had about 160 employees with an average age of 33, according to its website.

Police have confirmed the identity of the suspect as Shinji Aoba, but have declined to comment further.

Aoba had been convicted of robbery and carried out the attack because he believed his novel had been plagiarized, NHK and other media have said.

But Hatta said he had no idea about any plagiarism claim, adding he had not seen any correspondence from the suspect.

Police have not arrested Aoba, as he is being treated for heavy burns, NHK said, although police have taken the unusual step of releasing his name.

Two days after the fire, animation fans gathered near the burnt out studio to add to a growing pile of flowers, drinks and other offerings.

Bing Xie, 25, a Chinese student at Kyoto University, said she could not forgive the arsonist.

"The criminal who does this seems to have been mentally disturbed, but I can’t forgive him. The young people at Kyoto Animation were beautiful and warm and it is hard to accept they are gone."

Police guarded the site as investigators, some on the roof near where many died in a connecting stairwell, examined the blackened building. The smell of burning lingered over the quiet suburban neighborhood.

Hatta said the building needed to be torn down because it was so badly damaged.

Tributes to the victims lit up social media, with world leaders and Apple Inc's chief executive offering condolences. The hashtag #PrayforKyoAni, as the studio is known among fans, has become popular.

Kyoto Animation, in a quiet suburb about 20 minutes by train from the center of Kyoto, produces popular "anime" series such as the "Sound! Euphonium". It is also known for "Violet Evergarden," which has been shown on Netflix.

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Suspected arsonist planned Japan's worst mass killing in 18 years-media

KYOTO, Japan - A man suspected of torching an animation studio in western Japan shouted that he had been plagiarized and appeared to have planned the attack, media said on Friday after a blaze that killed 33 people in Japan's worst mass killing in two decades.

The 41-year-old man "seemed to be discontented, he seemed to get angry, shouting something about how he had been plagiarized", a woman who saw the suspect being detained told reporters.

The unidentified man shouted "Die!" before dousing the entrance to Kyoto Animation headquarters with what appeared to be petrol and setting it ablaze around 10:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Thursday, media reported.

The blaze killed 33 people and another 10 people were in critical condition, authorities said late on Thursday, in Japan's worst mass killing since a suspected arson attack in Tokyo killed 44 people in 2001.

Police searched through the smoldering shell of the building for clues on Friday.

A man resembling the suspect went to a petrol station on Thursday with two 20-liter cans, Japanese media said. Two cans, a rucksack and a trolley were found near the site, and television footage showed what appeared to be five long knives laid out on the ground outside the three-storey building.

The suspect had no connection with Kyoto Animation and his driver's license listed an address in Saitama, a northern suburb of Tokyo, public broadcaster NHK said. Little else was known about the man, who is under police supervision with serious burns to the face and legs, media reports said.

NHK showed footage of what it said appeared to be the suspect lying on his back on the ground as he spoke to a police officer, shoeless and with what appeared to be burns on his right leg below the knee.

Kyoto Animation, located in a quiet suburb about 20 minutes by train from the center of Japan's ancient capital, produces popular "anime" series such as the "Sound! Euphonium".

Its "Free! Road to the World - The Dream" movie is due for release this month.

The studio sits between two train lines close to a stream amid houses and small apartment blocks, a few stores and a taxi company parking lot. The area was cordoned off on Friday morning. A few of the original 30 or so firetrucks remained in the streets but with their lights off. Some firefighters appeared to still be dousing the smoldering building.

Jun Shin, a 30-year-old Chinese man living in nearby Osaka, came to the site on Thursday night to lay flowers near the burnt-out office and say a prayer.

"I am an anime fan," Jun, an information-technology worker, told Reuters. "I have watched animation since I was a student, and this was a terrible event, I just want to come and mourn. It left me speechless."

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Japan police investigate cause of blast that hurt 42

TOKYO - Japanese police were investigating Monday the cause of a powerful blast that ripped through a restaurant in the country's north overnight, injuring 42 people and damaging surrounding buildings.

The explosion in the city of Sapporo on Sunday night started fires and caused the partial collapse of some neighboring buildings, forcing dozens of residents into shelters, officials said.

The cause of the blast was still under investigation, police said, but there were reports that it may have been a gas leak.

Some reports said fumes were leaking from spray cans that had been collected for disposal at a real estate company in the building.

But investigators were also looking into at least nine propane tanks installed in the building for the various businesses located inside.

Numerous customers at the restaurant on the building's first floor said they smelled gas at the time of the explosion, Kyodo News agency reported.

The blast produced large flames and sent plumes of smoke rising in the night air, with witnesses describing a terrifying boom.

The two-story wooden building, which also housed a clinic, was seriously damaged, a Sapporo fire department official told AFP.

Police said 42 people had been injured, but there were no fatalities. Among the injured were several children, as well as a man who suffered burns and a woman who jumped from the building to escape, breaking her leg in the process.

"There was an enormous sound, 'bang', then when I looked up at the sky it was filled with plumes of smoke," an elderly woman said in footage on public broadcaster NHK.

"The ceiling fell, then the entire second floor collapsed and we were all stuck. We managed to escape after everyone kicked through the wall," a person who was in the restaurant at the time told Kyodo.

The fire from the blast spread to neighboring buildings, and debris blasted out by the explosion shattered the windows of nearby apartments and restaurants, according to local reports.

"We are investigating details about the damage together with police at the scene," the fire department official said.

The blast happened around 8:30 pm (1130 GMT), and the city government opened a shelter to house dozens of people whose homes were damaged.

The explosion also caused a temporary black-out, with 250 buildings losing electricity, but power was later restored, he said.

The three tenants in the building were poorly prepared for possible fires, Sapporo fire department official Takashi Shida told AFP.

"We instructed them to improve these points during an on-site inspection in October but they had not made progress," he said.

Many small and medium-sized older buildings in Japan are built partly or entirely from wood and are vulnerable to fires.

In February, 11 people were killed in Sapporo after a fire broke out at a home for elderly people with financial difficulties.

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Explosion at Japan restaurant injures 42: police

TOKYO - An explosion at a restaurant in northern Japan injured 42 people late Sunday, police said, with the blast reportedly causing surrounding buildings to collapse.

Fires broke out following the incident in the northern city of Sapporo, Kyodo news agency said, and images from the scene showed large flames and plumes of smoke rising in the night air.

A police official for the Hokkaido region told AFP "there are 42 injuries" but no one was killed.

The cause of the blast is being investigated. One witness reportedly said he had smelled gas after the explosion.

The building that housed the restaurant was heavily damaged, as were other nearby businesses, including a real estate company, Jiji news agency said.

Children were injured in the blast, Jiji added, citing police.

National broadcaster NHK said it took firefighters several hours to extinguish the flames.

Police warned earlier of possible secondary explosions, according to Kyodo, which described buildings collapsing following the incident around 8:30 pm.

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At least 19 missing, 120 injured as powerful quake hits Japan's Hokkaido

TOKYO - A powerful earthquake triggered a landslide that engulfed houses on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido early on Thursday, television footage showed, injuring and trapping dozens of people and cutting power to millions across Hokkaido.

A landslide along a long ridge in the rural town of Atsuma could be seen in aerial footage from public broadcaster NHK. At least 19 people were missing and 120 people were injured in Hokkaido after the magnitude 6.7 quake, it said.

There were no early reports of deaths but a man suffered cardiac arrest after falling down stairs, Japanese media reported.

Japan's Hokkaido Electric Power Co said it conducted an emergency shutdown of all its fossil fuel-fired power plants after the quake, leading to blackouts across Hokkaido.

Efforts to restore power to 2.95 million households were underway but it was not clear when supplies would be restored, a company spokesman said.

Japan's Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said the ministry instructed Hokkaido Electric Power to restart the coal-fired Tomato-Atsuma power plant within a few hours.

Roof tiles and water covered floors at Hokkaido's main airport, New Chitose Airport, which would be closed for at least Thursday.

Kansai Airport, an important hub for companies exporting semiconductors in western Japan, remained closed due to a powerful typhoon earlier this week.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said officials hope to reopen Kansai Airport for domestic flights on Friday.

FIRE, POWER OUTAGES

The quake, which struck at 3:08 a.m. (2:08 a.m. Manila time) posed no tsunami risk, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The US Geological Survey said it struck some 68 km (42 miles) southeast of Sapporo, Hokkaido's main city.

Abe arrived at his office before 6 a.m. and told reporters his government had set up a command center to coordinate relief and rescue. Sounding haggard, Abe said saving lives was his government's top priority.

The Tomari Nuclear Power Station suffered a power outage but was cooling its fuel rods safely with emergency power, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Operator Hokkaido Electric Power Co reported no radiation irregularities at the plant, which has been shut since shortly after a massive 2011 earthquake, Suga told a news conference.

A fire broke out at a Mitsubishi Steel Mfg Co plant in the city of Muroran after the quake but was mostly extinguished with no injuries, a company official said.

A row of houses could be seen slanting at odd angles, leaning against one another in one town, and many schools were closed, NHK said.

NHK footage showed a crumbled brick wall and broken glass in a home, and quoted police as saying some people were trapped in collapsed structures.

Soldiers were shown looking for damage on a rural road that was blocked by fallen trees.

A series of smaller shocks, including one with a magnitude of 5.4, followed the initial quake, the Meteorological Agency said. Agency official Toshiyuki Matsumori warned residents to take precautions for potential major aftershocks in coming days.

Shinkansen bullet trains were halted in some areas of Hokkaido, NHK said.

Japan is situated on the "Ring of Fire" arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin and accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, struck on March 11, 2011, under the ocean off the coast of the northern city of Sendai. The quake set off a series of massive tsunami that devastated a wide swath of the Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000 people.

The tsunami also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, leading to a series of explosions and meltdowns in the world's worst nuclear disaster for 25 years.

Saturday marked the 95th anniversary of the Great Kanto earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. Seismologists have said another such quake could strike the city at any time.

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At least 64 killed in Japan after 'unprecedented' rain, dozens missing

TOKYO -- The death toll from unprecedented rains in Japan rose to at least 64 on Sunday after rivers burst their banks and forced several million people from their homes, media reports said, with more rain set to hit some areas for at least another day.

Torrential rains pounded some parts of western Japan with three times the usual precipitation for a normal July and set off landslides and sent rivers surging over their banks, trapping many people in their houses or on rooftops.

"We've never experienced this kind of rain before," an official at the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) told a news conference. "This is a situation of extreme danger."

At least 64 people were killed and 44 missing, national broadcaster NHK said after the death toll had been put at 49 overnight. Among the missing was a 9-year-old boy believed trapped in his house by a landslide that killed at least three others, one of them a man in his 80s.

"All I have is what I'm wearing," a rescued woman clutching a toy poodle told NHK television.

"We had fled to the second floor but then the water rose more, so we went up to the third floor," she said.

Japan's government set up an emergency management centre at the prime minister's office and some 54,000 rescuers from the military, police and fire departments were dispatched across a wide swath of southwestern and western Japan.

"There are still many people missing and others in need of help, we are working against time," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

Emergency warnings for severe rain remained in effect for three prefectures, with 11 inches predicted to fall by Monday morning in parts of the smallest main island of Shikoku.

Evacuation orders remained in place for some 2 million people and another 2.3 million were advised to evacuate, although rain had stopped and floodwaters receded in some areas. Landslide warnings were issued in more than a quarter of the nation's prefectures.

'POURING DOWN'

"My husband couldn't make it home from work since the road was flooded, and since it was pouring down rain I didn't have enough courage to walk to an evacuation center with two infants after dark," one woman wrote on Twitter, without giving further details.

The rain began late last week as the remnants of a typhoon fed into a seasonal rainy front, with humid, warm air pouring in from the Pacific making it still more active - a pattern similar to one that set off flooding in southwestern Japan exactly a year ago that killed dozens. The front then remained in one place for an unusually long time, the JMA said.

Roads were closed and train services suspended in parts of western Japan. Shinkansen bullet train services, resumed on a limited schedule after they were suspended on Friday.

Automakers including Mazda Motor Corp. and Daihatsu Diesel Manufacturing Co. suspended operations at several plants on Saturday due to a shortage of parts or dangerous conditions. They were set to decide later on Sunday on plans for the coming week.

Electronics maker Panasonic Corp. said one plant in Okayama, western Japan, could not be reached due to road closures, although it had been closed for the weekend anyway. A decision about next week would be made on Monday.

While the Japanese government monitors weather conditions closely and issues warnings from an early stage, the fact that much of the country outside major cities is mountainous and building takes place on virtually every bit of usable land leaves it vulnerable to disasters.

Reforestation policies after World War II that saw many mountains logged and replanted with trees whose roots are less able to retain water have also contributed to the danger. 

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Japan floods death toll rises to 15

TOKYO, Japan - The death toll from heavy rains and flooding in southern Japan has risen to 15, media reported Saturday, as rescuers continued work to bring out isolated survivors.

Raging rivers overflowing with water and mud have devastated swathes of Kyushu -- the southernmost of Japan's four main islands -- after heavy rainfall, sweeping away roads and houses and destroying schools.

Thousands of rescuers have been fighting through thick mud and battling rain to search for missing and stranded people, with more than 600 believed to still be cut off according to Jiji Press.

Jiji and public broadcaster NHK reported the death toll had risen to 15 as more bodies were discovered.

The central government announced Friday an official death toll of seven with 22 people unaccounted for.

Deep mud and soaked ground on steep hillsides as well as knocked-out bridges have hampered rescue work.

TV footage has shown rescuers strapping people to cables to be lifted up to helicopters to be ferried to safety in evacuation shelters.

Broken trees, their bark stripped away, littered the scenic and verdant landscape like broken matchsticks as thick clouds hovered over green mountains.

Aerial TV footage on Friday showed desperate residents of one isolated area using uprooted trees to spell out "SOS for rescuers to see.

Fallen trees smashed into houses in the hard-hit Fukuoka prefecture city of Asakura, which saw more than 50 centimetres (almost 20 inches) of rain in a 12-hour period to Wednesday night.

"My parents are still trapped with 16 other people in the Kurogawa area and I have absolutely no information about the situation there," Asakura resident Kayoko Ishibashi told AFP Friday, referring to a district in the city.

"So I can only wait here in the hope that they will be rescued by helicopter," she added. "It's the same for everyone here."

The government has dispatched some 12,000 police, military, firefighters and coast guard personnel for rescue operations.

Japan's Imperial Household Agency said that out of consideration for the disaster-hit region, Emperor Akihito's eldest granddaughter Princess Mako and her fiancée decided to postpone Saturday's scheduled formal announcement of their engagement.

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Powerful quake hits Japan, Fukushima residents urged to flee

TOKYO - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 hit northern Japan on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, generating a tsunami that hit the nation's northern Pacific coast.

The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was centred off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles) and struck at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT) the agency said.

A 60 cm (2 foot) tsunami had been observed at Fukushima's Onahama Port and a 90 cm (3 foot) tsunami at Soma soon after, public broadcaster NHK said. The region is the same that was devastated by a tsunami following a massive earthquake in 2011.

A tsunami warning of up to 3 metres (10 feet) has been issued.

One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo news agency reported, citing fire department officials.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, said on its website that no damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas. Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant caused Japan's worst nuclear disaster when it was knocked out by the 2011 tsunami.

Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there was no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from Fukushima harbours as tsunami warning signals wailed.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered caused world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.

An Iwaki city fire dept official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha's research centre in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6:17 a.m., but it was extinguished at 6:40 a.m. Other details were not clear, he said, adding that no other major damage in the city has been reported at the moment.

One hotel in Ofunato, badly hit by the 2011 quake, told guests to stay in the facility, which is on high ground.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially put Tuesday's quake at a magnitude of 7.3 but down graded it to 6.9.

All nuclear plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shutdown in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest of the country. Even when in shutdown nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.

(Writing by William Mallard; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi, Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz and Aaron Sheldrick; Editing Richard Balmforth and Lincoln Feast)

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Attacker in Japan stabs, kills 19 in their sleep at disabled center

SAGAMIHARA, Japan - A knife-wielding man stabbed and killed 19 people as they slept at a facility for the disabled in a town near Tokyo early on Tuesday, a senior government official said, Japan's worst mass killing in decades.

At least 25 other residents of the facility were wounded in the attack.

"This is a very heart-wrenching and shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a scheduled news conference in Tokyo.

Police have arrested Satoshi Uematsu, 26, a former employee at the facility in Sagamihara town in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, a Kanagawa official said. At least one media report said Uematsu had called for euthanasia of the severely disabled.

Uematsu had turned himself in, the Kanagawa prefecture official, identified only by his surname of Sakuma, told an earlier news conference carried on public broadcaster NHK.

Another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously, Sakuma said.

Kyodo news agency said the dead ranged in age from 19 to 70 and included nine males and 10 females. Earlier media reports had said as many as 45 people had been wounded.

Staff called police at 2.30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds of the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility, media reported. The man wore a black T-shirt and trousers, reports said.

The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility, established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities, NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.

Residents of the small town of Sagamihara said the last murder in the area was 10 years ago.

A woman who said she used to work at the facility said many patients were profoundly disabled.

"They are truly innocent people. What did they do? This is shocking," she told Japanese television station TBS.

BAG OF KNIVES

Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, the Kanagawa prefecture official said.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives.

Asahi Shimbun reported that the suspect was quoted by police as saying: "I want to get rid of the disabled from this world." Other reports said he had held a grudge after being fired from his job at the facility.

Broadcaster NTV reported that the arrested man presented a letter to the speaker of the lower house of Japan's parliament in February calling for euthanasia of disabled people.

"My goal is a world in which, in cases where it is difficult for the severely disabled to live at home and be socially active, they can be euthanised with the consent of their guardians," it quoted the letter as saying.

At least 29 emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.

NHK reported that the facility is usually locked at night but the suspect broke into the building by smashing a window.

The facility's website said the centre had a maximum capacity of 160 people, including staff.

Such mass killings are extremely rare in Japan and typically involve stabbings. Japan has strict gun laws and possession of firearms by the public is rare.

Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001. Seven people died in 2008 when a man drove a truck into a crowd and began stabbing people in Tokyo's popular electronics and "anime" district of Akihabara.

A revision to Japan's Swords and Firearms Control Law was introduced in 2009 in the wake of that attack, banning the possession of double-edged knives and further tightening gun-ownership rules.

Members of a doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.

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Pentagon confirms blast at US military post in Japan

TOKYO, Japan - A blast ripped through a US military post near Tokyo early Monday, triggering a fire, the Pentagon confirmed, noting that no injuries had been reported.

US Navy Commander Bill Urban, a spokesman, said the explosion occurred at a building at the US Army Sagami General Depot in the city of Sagamihara, some 25 miles (40 kilometres) southwest of the Japanese capital.

"There are no reports of injury, and base firefighters and first responders are currently fighting the resulting fire to prevent its spread to nearby buildings," Urban said.

Japanese firefighters said they were waiting for information from the US side on what was stored in the warehouse before tackling the blaze.

"We are coordinating with US fire units and we are waiting for people who know exactly what is inside to tell us what's inside," a duty officer at the Sagahimara fire bureau told AFP.

"We have not poured water (on the warehouse) because it could make the situation worse, depending on what is inside," he said.

Commander Urban later said the depot did not store ammunition or radiological material.

"The storage building is not designated as a hazardous material storage facility as some initial reports indicated. We are in the process of determining the exact contents of the building," he said.

The cause of the explosion was being investigated.

Dramatic video footage shot by a local woman showed large sparks shooting out like fireworks from a huge structural fire lighting up the night sky.

She told national broadcaster NHK that thunderous explosions were heard repeatedly for 10 to 15 minutes.

"Orange sparks were rising quite high. I couldn't see smoke but smelled something like gunpowder," she told NHK.

Aerial footage recorded by NHK about an hour after the fire began showed no open flames rising outside the building, with a smaller orange blaze seen inside though its burnt roof.

The municipal fire bureau had dispatched 13 fire engine and other vehicles to the site, the fire official said.

Firefighters had surveyed the area around the warehouse and had not noticed any physical damage or toxic fumes, he added.

"We have been in touch with the US side and we are now planning to take action when we have daylight," he said later, with the fire apparently weakening.

The fire department had not received any reports of injuries.

Washington, which for 70 years has been the guarantor of Japan's security, has 47,000 service personnel stationed in the country as part of a defence alliance.

A constitution imposed by a post-war US occupation force barred pacifist Japan's military from combat except in self-defence.

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Japan police arrest MtGox CEO over loss of bitcoins: media

TOKYO, Japan - Japanese police on Saturday arrested Mark Karpeles, CEO of the collapsed MtGox bitcoin exchange, over the loss of nearly $390 million worth of the virtual currency, local media said.

Karpeles is suspected of having accessed the computer system of the exchange and of falsifying data on its outstanding balance, Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK said.

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Magnitude 8.5 quake strikes off eastern Japan

TOKYO - A magnitude 8.5 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan on Saturday, shaking buildings in Tokyo but with no immediate reports of damage, public broadcaster NHK said.

There was no danger of tsunami, it added.

The earthquake, centered off the Ogasawara islands south of Tokyo, was felt widely in Japan but occurred at a depth of 590 km.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said there were no abnormalities at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant following the quake. The runways at Tokyo's Narita airport were operating normally but the high-speed bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka was halted due to a power outage, NHK said.

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Magnitude 6.8 quake hits central Japan; no tsunami warning

TOKYO - An earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted central Japan on Saturday evening, temporarily trapping 21 people when their homes collapsed and leaving 13 people injured, police and public broadcaster NHK said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said no tsunami warning was issued after the quake, which was felt in the capital Tokyo 180 km (110 miles) away.

A National Police Agency official said the quake destroyed five houses in Hakuba village, host to ski jumping and other events during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games, but that the 21 villagers trapped were successfully rescued.

At least two of them were injured, although the degree of their injuries was not immediately clear, he said.

NHK reported 13 people were injured in the quake, including five who were seriously hurt.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters an advanced party of Japan's military had been sent to the area, and others were on standby.

High-speed trains were halted but later resumed service, Kyodo news agency reported.

There were no signs of irregularities at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant, a spokesman for the utility said. The plant, where all seven reactors are currently off-line, is the world's largest power station.

NHK quoted an official in the village of Ogawa near the epicentre as saying there was a long tremor and documents fell off shelves.

"On the second floor of our house, the tremor was too strong to stand," said Sakiko Hagiwara, an NHK employee in the area.

"Pictures fell off the wall," she said, adding there were no cracks in the walls.

NHK also said there was a report of a landslide blocking roads near Hakuba.

Japan, situated on the "Ring of Fire" arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin, accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck under the ocean off the coast of the northern city of Sendai. The quake triggered a massive tsunami that devastated a wide swathe of the Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000. It also devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns in the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

(Additional reporting by Olivier Fabre, Osamu Tsukimori, Kiyoshi Takenaka; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Andrew Roche and David Evans)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

JAL Dreamliner makes emergency landing in Honolulu

TOKYO - Japan Airlines said Sunday its Dreamliner flight from Tokyo to San Francisco made an emergency landing in Honolulu, reportedly due to a possible problem with its hydraulic system.

The pilot of flight JL002, carrying 171 passengers and crew, decided to divert to Hawaii after a warning message about falling pressure of lubricant oil in its right engine, according to Japanese national broadcaster NHK.

NHK said that there was no fire and no injuries.

In a short statement on its website, JAL said the jet had landed in Honolulu due to "maintenance issues".

"This flight terminated its operation at Honolulu International Airport," the announcement said.

JAL officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has suffered a series of problems since coming into service two years ago, including a global grounding of its fleet over battery system problems.

Boeing admitted that despite months of testing it did not know the root cause of the battery problems, but rolled out modifications it said would ensure the issue did not recur.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Japanese scientists confirm fat-burning protein

OSAKA, Japan - A team of researchers of Japan's Kyoto University has found a protein that helps the body burn fat following an intake of fatty meals, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Monday.

The researchers at the Kyoto University's Institute of Chemical Research compared mice with protein called GPR120 with those that do not have the protein, and provided them with high-fat feeds, the report said.

They confirmed that the mice without the protein were heavier than those who had it by an average of 15 percent, and accumulated twice as much fat in their bodies, it said.

The Japanese scientists also analyzed the genetic sequence of about 20,000 people in Europe, including the French and the British, and found that people with mutant GPR120 genes were 1.6 times more likely to be obese.

Based on the result of the research, the Japanese scientists concluded the protein is capable of detecting fat, and also plays a role in prompting the body to burn the fat.

Professor Gozo Tsujimoto, head of the researcher team, was quoted by NHK as saying that the development of drugs that activate the protein will help prevent obesity.

source: interaksyon.com