New Delhi: A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.3 hit the coast of Fukushima in northern Japan on Wednesday, triggering a tsunami advisory warning, AP reported.
“An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 occurred 297 km Northeast of Tokyo, Japan, at around 8.06 pm today,” said National Center for Seismology.
The quake was centred off the coast of the Fukushima region at a depth of 60 kilometres, said the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Shortly after it hit at 11:36 pm, an advisory for tsunami waves of one metre was issued for parts of the northeast coast, including parts of Miyagi and Fukushima, AP reported.
The quake shook large parts of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. More than two million households were left without power, including 700,000 in Tokyo, electricity provider TEPCO said.
However, there are no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force said it had dispatched fighter jets for information gathering and damage assessment. East Japan Railway has suspended most of its train services, AP reported.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the government was assessing the extent of damage and promised to do its utmost for rescue and relief operations. “Please first take action to save your life,” Kishida tweeted.
The same region was hit by a major quake followed by a tsunami in 2011 that triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The tsunami left some 18,500 dead or missing.
The tremor comes days after Japan marked the 11th anniversary of the disaster in March 2011.
Japan, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, is regularly hit by quakes, and has strict construction regulations intended to ensure buildings can withstand strong tremors, AP reported.
The Pacific “Ring of Fire” is an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
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