A powerful earthquake that struck the Tokyo area Thursday night, the strongest the Japanese capital has experienced in a decade, left 32 people injured and continued to disrupt train services the following morning, affecting about 368,000 passengers in total, according to Kyodo News.
The temblor left many late-night train passengers stranded and caused commuter disruption Friday morning, with services on shinkansen bullet train and 16 local train lines canceled or delayed from late night Thursday to around 3 p.m. Friday, according to East Japan Railway Co.
The magnitude-5.9 earthquake, which struck the capital region at 10:41 p.m. Thursday, logged upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in parts of Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
The earthquake also caused power outages, affecting about 250 houses in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward at one point, while water stoppages and leaks were reported in central Tokyo.
There were 28 cases of people being trapped in elevators in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures but all cases have been cleared, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said Friday.
Several hundred passengers were forced to evacuate from a train on the JR Tokaido Line, using escape ladders, in the early hours of Friday after being stranded on the stopped train for more than two hours, according to a Kyodo News reporter who was at the scene.
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