Three killed in Japan aftershock–officials

TOKYO–A powerful tremor that struck Japan on Monday, one of hundreds of aftershocks stemming from the massive earthquake-tsunami that hit a month ago, killed three people, emergency services said Tuesday.

The three victims were found in debris from a landslide that destroyed houses in Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture after the 6.6 magnitude quake on Monday evening.

The news came as Japan was hit by yet another powerful quake, which had an epicentre close to Iwaki and was measured at 6.0 magnitude by the US Geological Survey.

A spokesman for the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said fire fighters had pulled two bodies from one of the houses, while rescuing four people from another.

“One of the rescued individuals died later in hospital,” the spokesman said, adding that three people were badly injured in the landslide.

Jiji Press, citing police and fire department authorities, said Monday a 46-year-old man in Ryugasaki in Ibaraki prefecture had died after hitting his head following the quake.

Japan is still reeling from a 9.0 magnitude undersea quake and the huge tsunami it generated on March 11.

More than 13,000 people are known to have died with over 14,000 still unaccounted for in the country’s worst calamity since World War II.

Hundreds of kilometres (miles) of coast were battered by the wave, which destroyed whole towns in the northeast and sparked an atomic emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.