By Elaine Lies
KURIHARA, Japan (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rockedrural northern Japan on Saturday, killing at least five people,injuring more than 200 and sparking landslides that slicedmountains, destroyed roads and left residents cut off.
The 7.2 magnitude quake struck at 8:43 a.m. (12:43amBritish time Saturday) in Iwate, a sparsely populated, scenicarea around 300 km (190 miles) north of Tokyo, where buildingsalso shook.
More than 160 aftershocks rocked the northern area andofficials warned more strong quakes might be in store.
"There's one whole mountain gone. It's all over the roadnow," said one woman in her 50s, who said she and her husbandhad been en route to a hot spring resort but had to abandontheir car and walk because roads were blocked by a landslide.
TV footage showed mountains carved away by the force of thequake, trees fallen into newly slashed ravines, roads endingabruptly at cliffs and bridges buckled and broken. Homes wereshown strewn with scattered and smashed belongings.
"Dishes and spices fell, the microwave came flying and thedoors of the refrigerator flew open all in a second," said58-year-old Kinoko Hayasaka.
But experts said the energy released by the quake was farless than the magnitude 7.9 earthquake that hit southwesternChina on May 12, leaving nearly 87,000 people dead or missing.
Water containing a small amount of radiation leaked withina Tokyo Electric Power Co nuclear power facility in the region,but there was no leakage outside, a spokesman for Japan'sbiggest utility said.
One of the people killed was caught in a landslide, ChiefCabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters. A secondman was hit by a car after running out of a building, and athird was killed by falling rocks at a dam construction site.
A fourth person died when a car was buried under alandslide, a local official said. Two others were rescued andtaken to hospital, but another car was still buried, he added.
Two people out of three missing at a work site in Kuriharaafter a landslide had been found and were in cardiac arrest, alocal official said. Kyodo news agency said they were dead.
AFTERSHOCKS CONTINUING
NHK national TV put the total death toll at five, with 202people hurt and 10 missing as aftershocks jolted the region,hampering rescue efforts.
"The aftershocks are continuing ... so a very carefulresponse is required," Shinya Izumi, the cabinet minister incharge of disaster response, told a news conference.
"But we also need to rescue people as quickly as possible.It is a very tough situation."
Four campers including three non-Japanese, wereunreachable, Kyodo added.
More than 600 people were cut off in remote areas andmilitary and other helicopters were heading their way, NHKsaid.
Some people in Kurihara, a city with a population of about80,000, were cooking rice outside in pots over wood fires.
"We have no water or electricity. No one has anything toeat. So we are making rice balls for everyone," said65-year-old Yoko Mitsuzuka.
Hundreds of homes were without water, but many poweroutages had been restored within hours of the quake, mediasaid.
Experts said casualties could rise as reports came in fromisolated areas but the scope of the quake was far smaller thanone that struck China a month ago.
"The seismic energy of the China quake was one order ofmagnitude greater," Naoshi Hirata, a professor at TokyoUniversity's Earthquake Research Institute, told Reuters.
He added the region's sparse population and Japan's strictbuilding standards had likely limited the impact.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's mostseismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater,prompting tough building codes to try to limit damage.
In October 2004, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck theNiigata region in northern Japan, killing 65 people andinjuring more than 3,000. That was the deadliest quake since amagnitude 7.3 tremor hit the city of Kobe in 1995, killing morethan 6,400.
(Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka, Yoko Kubota, YuzoSaeki, Chikafumi Hodo, Osamu Tsukimori and Nathan Layne;Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Toby Reynolds)
