One of the dead was a man in his 60s living in the city of Soma, the local disaster prevention office said on Thursday.
A tsunami advisory was issued following Wednesday’s earthquake for the coastal prefectures of Fukushima and Miyagi, but was lifted on Thursday morning and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later said “nothing is available.” anomalies” have been detected at any of the country’s nuclear plants.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake had a preliminary epicenter depth of 60 kilometers (37 miles). It warned of tsunami heights of up to 1 meter above normal tide levels, with initial waves hitting shore around midnight local time (11 a.m. ET).
About an hour and a half after the quake struck, an 8-inch tsunami struck along the coast of Japan’s Miyagi prefecture, according to the agency, advising people in affected areas to stay away from the shore. sea.
Kishida said a bullet train derailed near Fukushima as a result of the earthquake but no injuries were reported at a news conference. According to public broadcaster NHK, 78 people were trapped for four hours after the bullet train derailed, but were uninjured through the emergency exit.
Kyodo news agency reported that those injured by the quake were taken to a hospital in the Fukushima city of Soma. Electricity has been restored in all of Tokyo, Tokyo Electric Power said.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday urged the public to watch out for more seismic activity over the next few days. Masaki Nakamura, an agency official, urged people in affected areas to stay away from the coast and not enter the sea until tsunami warnings are lifted. He also urged people to be vigilant against the risk of landslides.
The epicenter of Wednesday’s quake was 55 miles (89 km) away from the devastating 2011 quake that triggered a tsunami with 30-foot waves that damaged several nuclear reactors in the area. – resulted in the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl incident. More than 22,000 people were killed or missing in that disaster. The deaths were due to the initial earthquake and tsunami and the post-disaster health status due to radioactive leaks.
The 2011 Japan earthquake was 9.1 magnitude, 63 times stronger and released about 500 times more energy than Wednesday’s quake.
