国际英语资讯:18 dead, 19 missing in wake of powerful earthquake at Japans Hokkaido_时事

国际英语资讯:18 dead, 19 missing in wake of powerful earthquake at Japans Hokkaido

At one point, some 2.95 million homes were without electricity as the whole prefecture suffered a power outage, and water supply was cut off at some 66,590 households, local utilities said.

But easing the pressure somewhat, as of Friday night, power was reconnected to 70 percent of the homes in Hokkaido, and water had been reconnected at half of the homes, according to local reports.

The government said that electricity was expected to be restored across the prefecture on Saturday.

According to transport officials, Hokkaido's Shinkansen bullet train service was resumed at noon on Friday and Sapporo's subway system also restarted services.

The local office of the transport ministry said that power was restored to the terminal building at New Chitose Airport, the gateway to Hokkaido.

Airlines have been making arrangements to resume operations, but all flights on Friday morning were cancelled and passengers were struggling to book seats on flights out of Hokkaido.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7, struck Hokkaido prefecture at 3:08 a.m. local time Thursday (1808 GMT Wednesday).

The quake logged the maximum 7 on Japan's seismic intensity scale, marking the first time for Hokkaido since the seismic scale was revised in 1996, according to Japan's weather agency.

Hundreds of aftershocks have since followed and the JMA has warned that earthquakes over magnitude-5.0 could still occur in the area in the following week.