Shika: A powerful earthquake that jolted Ishikawa Prefecture on New Year’s Day on Monday terrified residents in the central Japan prefecture.

The quake measured 7, the highest level on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, in the town of Shika. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a huge tsunami warning to the prefecture’s Noto region. A spate of aftershocks has occurred.

A celebratory mood for the arrival of the new year disappeared, and relevant local governments and others are speeding up efforts to confirm the extent of damage.

A 61-year-old self-employed woman was at her workplace near her home in Shika when the earthquake struck.

“I couldn’t keep standing, so I tried to grab the wall and pillar, and finally was able to maintain my position,” she said. “It shook violently, both vertically and horizontally.”

When she returned home, she found windows broken and furniture collapsed. A nearby house was completely destroyed by the earthquake, and other houses also suffered damage, such as fallen roof tiles and tilted pillars, according to the woman.

The woman then went to a nearby junior high school, which is being used as a shelter, finding 20 to 30 evacuees in each classroom.

“I’m scared because quakes continue,” she said. “How long will it last?”

“I felt an unprecedented fear that the building would collapse,” a woman working at a hotel in the town said. “I also heard loud noises outside.”

Fires broke out in the city of Wajima. “The sky was red, and it smelled like something was burning,” Shoji Yamashita, 59, who runs a restaurant in the city, said.

The fires were spreading fast, and work to extinguish the fires has not been enough, he said.

Outside the restaurant, a traffic light at an intersection fell down, and roads were caved in or raised here and there, according to Yamashita.

Damage from the earthquake is worse than in past quakes, Yamashita said. “I’m worried about everything.”

JIJI Press