Japan: The earthquake occurred at 8:06 pm at a depth of 81 km from the surface
Tokyo:
The Japan Meteorological Agency said a 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook eastern Japan Wednesday night, shaking the capital Tokyo and issuing tsunami advice for parts of Japan. northeast coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The quake was centered off the coast of the Fukushima area at a depth of 60 kilometers (37 miles).
Shortly after it struck at 11:36 p.m. (1436 GMT), a one-meter-high tsunami advisory was issued for parts of the coast.
Power supplier TEPCO said there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, but at least two million households lost power, including 700,000 in Tokyo.
Energy company Tohoku Electric Power said in the northeast region, 156,000 households were without electricity.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the government is gathering information on the situation.
“We will be committed to gathering information, doing our best to rescue those affected by (the earthquake) and communicating it appropriately,” he said.
TEPCO also said in a tweet that it was examining operations at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which fell into disaster 11 years ago after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the east coast on Jan. March 11, 2011, caused tsunami and nuclear disaster.
The Nuclear Regulatory Authority said no abnormalities were detected at the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi prefecture, northeast of the country.
Ring of Fire
Regional train company JR East said it was experiencing significant disruption to its operations.
Japan lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches across Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
The country is regularly hit by earthquakes and has strict building regulations to ensure buildings can withstand strong tremors.
But it is still haunted by the memory of the 2011 undersea earthquake in northeastern Japan, which triggered a deadly tsunami and caused the Fukushima nuclear accident.
A minute of silence was held on Friday, the anniversary of the disaster, to remember the approximately 18,500 people who died or went missing in the tsunami.
Around the affected Fukushima plant, extensive decontamination has been carried out, and this year five former residents of Futaba, the last uninhabited town in the area, have returned to live there on test facility.
About 12% of the area of Fukushima was once declared unsafe, but no-go zones now cover only 2.4% of the prefecture, although the population in many towns is still much lower than in the past.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
