A strong earthquake has shaken the northern coast of Japan, with the country’s meteorological agency recording two 40-centimetre tsunami waves and local media reporting injuries. The United States Geological Survey said the 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck around 3.15pm Italian time off the coast of Misawa on Japan’s Pacific coast at a depth of 53 kilometres. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning, with the first wave hitting a port in the northern region of Aomori, where Misawa is located. Another wave reached the city of Urakawa in the Hokkaido region, the agency said. Both waves measured 40 centimetres, he added.
Public broadcaster NHK cited a hotel employee in the Aomori city of Hachinohe as reporting some injuries, with live footage showing shattered glass shards strewn across the streets. The earthquake was also felt in the northern center of Sapporo, where alarms went off on smartphones to alert residents. An NHK reporter in Hokkaido described a horizontal jolt lasting about 30 seconds that prevented him from standing at the time of the earthquake. The weather agency had previously warned that a tsunami up to three meters high could hit Japan’s Pacific coast.
Japan sits on four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is one of the most active countries in the world. The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, experiences around 1,500 tremors every year. The vast majority are minor, although the damage they cause varies depending on their location and depth below the Earth’s surface.