1 month ago
A powerful earthquake struck off Japan’s southern coast on Thursday, triggering a tsunami advisory, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, but there were no immediate signs of major damage.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake registered a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and was centred off the eastern coast of Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu at a depth of about 30km (18.6 miles).
The agency said tsunami waves of up 50 centimetres (1.6ft) were detected along parts of Kyushu’s southern coast and the nearby island of Shikoku about a half hour after the quake struck.
The quake most strongly shook Nichinan city and nearby areas in Miyazaki prefecture on Kyushu.
Seismologists were holding an emergency meeting to analyse whether the quake had affected the nearby Nankai trough, the source of past devastating earthquakes.
Operators of nuclear plants on Kyushu and Shikoku said they were checking to see if there was any damage to them. Earthquakes in areas with nuclear power plants have been a major concern since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Japan’s NHK public television said there were reports of broken windows at the Miyazaki airport near the epicentre.
Japan sits on the Pacific “ring of fire,” the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean, and is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. An earthquake on 1 January in Japan’s north-central region of Noto left more than 240 people dead.
