Photo/Illutration The earthquake caused this house to collapse in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on May 5. (Provided by a resident)

One person was feared dead and buildings were damaged after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 rocked Ishikawa Prefecture on May 5, officials said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the government has obtained information that the person in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, suffered cardiopulmonary arrest.

He said police and fire departments, the Self-Defense Forces and the Japan Coast Guard have been checking on quake damage in the region.

The Cabinet Office will send an investigation team and use all possible means to rescue disaster victims and analyze the situation, Matsuno said.

He also said he had talked about the quake with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was en route from Singapore to Japan.

According to the Suzu Fire Station, at least two buildings were damaged in the city.

“I heard the ground rumbling for five to seven seconds,” a city official said. “Then things swayed from side to side for about 30 seconds.”

The quake struck at 2:42 p.m. and registered an upper 6 on the Japanese intensity scale of 7.

The epicenter was in the Noto area of the prefecture, and the focus was about 10 kilometers deep.

Intensities in the 4 range were felt in Niigata, Toyama and Fukui prefectures.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said there was no risk of tsunami.

An 85-year-old man who owns a liquor store in Suzu said: “There were awful rolling and banging thrusts from underneath for a while. It felt so long. It was the biggest earthquake in my life.”

The same area was hit by quake with a lower 6 intensity in June 2022. But the man said the shaking was stronger and longer this time.

About a dozen sake bottles were broken into pieces inside the store, he said.

Michi-no-eki Suzu Enden-mura, a roadside station in the city, was packed with about 100 Golden-Week tourists when the quake hit.

A staff member said he instructed visitors in the lobby to “drop and cover.”

After the shaking stopped, the visitors were guided out of the facility.

They were visibly shaken, the staff member said.

Another earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 shook the region at 2:53 p.m. Its focus was also about 10 km deep, and it generated seismic intensities in the 4 range.

After the first quake, West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) halted operations on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line between Kanazawa and Toyama stations.

Other trains in the Hokuriku region had resumed operations by 2:57 p.m.

Flights at Noto Satoyama Airport in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, were operating as scheduled as of 3:20 p.m., officials said.

Hokuriku Electric Power Co. and the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority said they found no abnormalities at the utility’s Shiga nuclear power plant in the prefecture.

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