the fire broke out thursday morning in a chinese restaurant in the niigata prefecture. >> translator: i've never seen a fire this big. >> translator: i'm wondering if my home is okay. >> the city advised more than 700 residents to evacuate. police say a woman was taken to hospital after inhaling smoke. another woman and three firefighters was slightly injured. three firefighters were slightly injured. an engineering professor says three factors contributed to the size of the fire. >> translator: first of all, the fire broke out in a restaurant at the center of the city. an area where wooden houses are closely built. secondly, strong winds caused the flames to spread to other houses. finally, it was beyond the capacity of local firefighters. they weren't able to deal with the fire that big. >> weather officials said wind gusts were clocked at almost 90 kilometers an hour in the area around noon that was due to a low developing in the japan sea. >>> the u.s. returned 4,000 people could soon be paying for the clean up around the nuclear plant. the cabinet signed off on a request from the

whenever we see this, heaviest typically down here, actually in niigata, japanese alps included, you could see over 40 centimeters of total snowfall. also back toward hokkaido as well to about 30 centimeters. now that is really in the mountains. if you have any travel plans, new year's holiday is coming up, a lot of people are going to be traveling. these are the areas you could be seeing some delays, maybe even cancelations. especially on the roadways being very congested. tokyo, on the other hand, staying cool but dry. those mountains really stop most of that moisture. in fact, temperatures will continue to cool off. now, this is creating some problems back toward the west. that area of high pressure, that's going to be sitting in place creating the air pollution in northeastern china. right now beijing, air quality's pretty decent, but once that sets in over the next 48 hours, do expect it to continue to deteriorate. warnings have been put out by china meteorological agency in that manner. back toward the east, seoul with a high of zero. that's going to stay on the chilly side. to

the blaze broke out in a chinese restaurant in niigata city on thursday morning. it eventually destroyed about 150 buildings, including houses and shshops. two residents and eight firefighters suffered injuries. city officials sayay the fire raged througugh an area and 744 opople and 3 363 households hahe been advdvised not to return to ththeir homes just yet. the restaurant owner says he discovered the fire had broken out after he returned from a short absence. residents say the blaze was at first restricted to the area around the restaurant. but after about 90 minutes, strong winds sent sparks into the air and helped fan the flames. >> translator: sparks flew all over the place, and the fire roared up. the flames suddenly spread as far as the shore. >> firefighters say the narrow streets in the neighborhood made it difficult to fight the blaze and keep it from spreading from house to house. >>> tens of thousands of people have visited the imperial palace in tokyo to celebrate the 38rd earthdy of emperor akihitito. the emperor and empress s appead on the balcony

there in niigata. about a 55 centimeter base. more snow expected on top of that, though. northeasterly winds over the next couple days are going to stay persistent at least heading into saturday morning. do remember, though, this is western hokkaido, western areas of honchu. if you're in nagoya, toward tokyo, clear skies will prevail over the next several days. those mountains stopping a lot of that precipitation. tokyo, high of 9. back toward the west, high pressure also dominates in seoul and beijing. sunny skies but it's on the cold side here on thursday. all right. here's our extended outlook. >>> and that wraps up this edition of nhk "newsline." i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. thanks for staying with us. ♪ >> welcome to "in good shape." our topics this week, life kinetics, an unusual method for training the brain. mysterious symptoms, how a misaligned jaw can cause many different conditions, and, sometimes deadly, the long and difficult road to recovery from tuberculosis. here's dr. carsten lekutat. dr. lekutat: hello and welcome to "in good shape." today, we are i