— Shoppers emptied store shelves, traffic snarled after stoplights lost power and drivers waited in long lines to buy gasoline in a new wave of anxiety Friday after a magnitude-7.1 aftershock struck disaster-weary northeastern Japan.
Nearly a half-million homes were without electricity after the latest tremor, which dealt another setback for those struggling to recover from the earthquake-spawned tsunami that wiped out hundreds of miles of the northeastern coast last month and killed as many as 25,000 people. “I feel helpless. I am back to square one,” said Ryoichi Kubo, 52, who had just finally reopened his gas station in hard-hit Iwate prefecture after the power outage and prolonged fuel shortage that followed the March 11 tsunami. Friday, he was again without electricity, his four gas pumps shut down.
