An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 jolted a wide area on the west coast of Honshu Island on Monday, July 16, 2007, killing nine people, and injuring more than 900 others. The quake caused the world's largest nuclear power plant to leak radioactive water into the sea, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency and company and emergency officials.
National highway is cut off following a powerful quake in Nagaoka, northwestern Japan.
Rail tracks are seen buried under mud after a strong earthquake triggered a landslide in Kashiwazaki in Niigata Prefecture (State), Japan.
Several people were killed and scores injured when a strong earthquake struck the area of Niigata in central Japan.
Worst hit was the city of Kashiwazaki, where a number of houses were damaged and older buildings were reduced to rubble.
Nearly 300 buildings in the city were destroyed and more than 7,000 people evacuated from their homes, officials said.
The region subsequently suffered several strong aftershocks.
Witnesses said the quake in Kashiwazaki was too strong for people to stand and went on for 20 seconds.
Elsewhere, the earthquake caused roads to buckle. A tsunami warning was briefly issued and 50cm-high waves were reported to have hit the coast.
At the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant, a fire broke out in an electricity transformer and a small amount of water containing radioactive material leaked into the sea, officials said.
The earthquake collapsed houses in Kashiwazaki, Japan.
The 6.8-magnitude earthquake was centered off the cost of Niigata, a prefecture that was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2004.
The earthquake, which occurred at 10:13 a.m. on what was a national holiday here, interrupted the supply of power and water to tens of thousands of homes.
The quake toppled one local train and shut down service on the bullet train for several hours.
A rescuer and his dog walks past a collapsed house in Kashiwazaki.
Rescuers carry an injured woman from a collapsed house in Kariwa.
Officials inspect the site of a collapsed road caused by an earthquake in Nagaoka, northern Japan, July 17, 2007.
