Powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes Japan’s north
Evacuation orders have been issued for around 90,000 residents as Japan’s government issues urgent tsunami warnings.
Source: Weather Monitors
Japan’s government is urgently assessing damage after a powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook the country’s north-east and triggered a tsunami.
Evacuation orders affected 90,000 residents and there were warnings to expect a tsunami as high as three metres.
The earthquake struck off Japan’s north-eastern coast late on Monday, triggering alerts in the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate.
Tsunamis from 20 to 70 centimetres high were observed at several ports, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Early on Tuesday, the agency downgraded the warnings to advisories, meaning lower estimated wave heights and less risk of inundation.
The epicentre of the quake was 80 kilometres off the coast of Aomori prefecture, at a depth of 50 kilometres, the agency said.
You might like
“There have been seven injuries reported,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Tuesday morning.
She said the government was urgently assessing the extent of damage.
On Japan’s 1-7 scale of seismic intensity, the tremor in Aomori prefecture registered as an “upper 6” — a quake strong enough to make it impossible to keep standing or move without crawling.
In such tremors, most heavy furniture can collapse and wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged in many buildings.
East Japan Railway suspended some services in the area, which was also hit by the massive 9.0-magnitude quake in March 2011.
There is little information of major damage, according to public broadcaster NHK. It cited a hotel employee in Hachinohe as saying several people were injured and taken to a hospital, but that all were conscious.
Stay informed, daily
“There is a possibility that further powerful and stronger earthquakes could occur over the next several days,” an agency official said.
No irregularities were reported at nuclear power plants in the region run by Tohoku Electric Power and Hokkaido Electric Power, the utilities said.
The epicentre of the earthquake was 73 kilometres east-north-east of Misawa. Photo: US Geological Survey
Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor at least every five minutes.
Located in the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater.
The north-eastern region suffered one of the country’s deadliest earthquakes on March 11, 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude tremor struck under the ocean off the coast of the northern city of Sendai.
It was the most powerful recorded in Japan and set off massive tsunamis that devastated a wide swathe of the Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000 people.
The 2011 tsunami also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leading to explosions and meltdowns in the world’s worst nuclear disaster for 25 years.
-with Reuters/AAP
