TOKYO: A major earthquake rocked Japan’s northern coast on Monday (Dec 8), with the country’s meteorological agency recording two 40cm tsunami waves and local media reporting injuries.
The United States Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.6 quake struck at 2.15pm GMT (10.15pm, Singapore time) off Misawa on Japan’s Pacific coast, at a depth of 53km.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning, with a first wave hitting a port in the northern region of Aomori, where Misawa is located, at 11.43pm.
At 11.50pm, another wave reached Urakawa town in the Hokkaido region, the agency said.
Both waves measured 40cm, it added.
Public broadcaster NHK cited a hotel employee in the city of Hachinohe in Aomori as saying there had been some injuries, with live footage showing shattered glass fragments scattered across roads.
East Japan Railway suspended some services in Aomori, which was also hit by the massive 9.0-magnitude quake in March 2011.
No irregularities were reported at nuclear power plants in the region run by Tohoku Electric Power and Hokkaido Electric Power, the utilities said. Tohoku Electric did say, however, that thousands were without power.
The quake was also felt in the northern hub of Sapporo, where alarms rang on smartphones to alert residents.
A reporter for NHK in Hokkaido described a horizontal shaking of around 30 seconds that made him unable to keep standing as the earthquake struck.
The meteorological agency earlier warned a tsunami of up to 3m was expected to hit Japan’s Pacific coast.
Japan sits on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is one of the world’s most tectonically active countries.
The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, experiences around 1,500 jolts every year.
The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and depth below the Earth’s surface.
This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.