Monday night, one person was killed in Iwaki and several others were trapped when a powerful 6.6-magnitude earthquake triggered landslides there, the fire department said. It happened exactly one month after the country's devastating 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami.
The earlier quake was centered about 100 miles (164 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The landslides in Iwaki buried three houses. Police in Fukushima Prefecture initially reported that four people were trapped. The Iwaki Fire Department later said more than four people were trapped, but the exact number was unclear.
Authorities were trying to rescue them. Their condition was not immediately known, police said.
The earthquake did not cause a tsunami.
Workers at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which has suffered cooling problems and radiation leaks since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, evacuated briefly but soon returned to resume their efforts to cool the troubled facility.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan delayed a scheduled news conference as a result of the earthquake, his office said. The government wants to handle the immediate emergency before holding a news conference, the office said.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company said 220,000 households and businesses in Fukushima were without power after Monday's quake.
Japan has been hit with hundreds of aftershocks since the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that killed at least 13,116 people. More than 14,000 remain missing.
A new magnitude 6.6 aftershock yesterday triggered a mudslide which left six people dead. 
The crisis at a  on the northeast coast of Japan is now as severe as the  in 1986, officials have said. Radiation is continuing to leak from the plant, which was damaged during the devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami last month, which left thousands dead. Japanese authorities have warned the crisis is now a "major accident" with "wider consequences" than previously thought.

A spokesperson for , the Japanese government nuclear authority, said officials had upgraded the crisis to a level seven on the —the same applied to the Chernobyl disaster—because of a number of factors, including the detection of radiation in crops. "We have upgraded the severity level to seven as the impact of radiation leaks has been widespread from the air, vegetables, tap water and the ocean," he said.

 
, the operator of the plant, has warned radiation was continuing to leak from the site and the magnitude of the crisis could exceed that of Chernobyl. Despite this, Japanese nuclear safety officials have insisted the leakage of radiation was small compared to the devastated plant in the former . "In terms of volume of radioactive materials released, our estimate shows it is about ten percent of what was released by Chernobyl," one nuclear official said.

The news comes as a new blow after another powerful aftershock yesterday which left at least six people dead after they were killed in a  in the city of . The landslide, which destroyed numerous homes, was triggered by a  6.6 aftershock which came exactly a month after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Fire officials in the city said three people had already been rescued and taken to hospital, and emergency workers were working to free an unknown number of others.
The International Nuclear Events Scale; the accidents at the Fukushima I have been elevated to level seven, the highest level on the scale, putting it on par with the , originally the accidents were rated at level five, the same level of the . 
Workers at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant returned after they were briefly evacuated following the earthquake, and officials issued tsunami warnings for the northeast coast which were later cancelled. Workers have been fighting a desperate battle to prevent the reactors from overheating and entering . Raging fires burned into the night after the earthquake, and TEPCO reported widespread power outages; hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses had power cut off.

Reports of the change in severity at the damaged nuclear plant followed the announcement that the  around the site was to be expanded. A spokesperson for the government confirmed the radius of the zone would be expanded to include another five communities over the next several weeks. He stressed there was "no need to evacuate immediately" but said concerns had been raised over health risks from the leaking radiation.

The new development at the plant and the aftershock are new blows to a country wounded after the massive earthquake in March, which caused a tsunami that washed away whole towns and villages along the country's northeast coast. Thousands of bodies have been recovered, and many more are still unaccounted for, many left under mounds of rubble or washed out to sea. More than 150,000 people remain displaced, living in emergency shelters.


Before the aftershock struck yesterday, survivors of the first earthquake marked the time it hit a month ago with a  across the country. Writing to seven international newspapers, , the ,  expressed his gratitude to people globally for their support. "Through our own efforts and with the help of the global community, Japan will recover and come back even stronger. We will then repay you for your generous aid," he wrote. "With this in our hearts, we now stand together dedicated to rebuilding the nation."



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de:Nachbeben in Japan – Behörden weiten Sicherheitszone aus
es:Aumentan el nivel de alerta radioactiva en la central nuclear Fukushima
fr:Les accidents de Fukushima évalués de niveau 7 par les autorités japonaises
pl:Fukushima: łączna ocena INES awarii podniesiona do 7. stopnia