A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck Japan's northern coast on Monday, injuring 23 people and triggering a tsunami in Pacific coast communities.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning, with one wave hitting a port in Aomori, about 30 minutes later. Several more waves reached the coast, measuring up to 50 centimetres, the agency said.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 23 people had been injured, including one seriously. Most of the victims were hit by falling objects, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.
Live footage showed shattered glass fragments scattered across roads.
The meteorological agency reported the quake's magnitude as 7.5, down from its earlier estimate of 7.6. It issued an alert for potential tsunami surges of up to 3 metres (10 feet) in some areas and later downgraded to an advisory.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara urged residents to go to higher ground or seek shelter until advisories were lifted. He said about 800 homes were without electricity and that the Shinkansen bullet trains and some local lines were suspended in parts of the region.
'Megaquake'
Mr Kihara said he had “received no reports yet of abnormalities” from two nuclear power plants in northern Japan, adding that investigations are continuing at other nuclear sites.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the government had set up an emergency task force to urgently assess the extent of damage. “We are putting people’s lives first and doing everything we can,” she said.
In 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake caused a tsunami that left 18,500 people dead or missing and caused a devastating meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Shortly after Monday's quake, Tohoku Electric Power said in a post on X that the safety equipment at its Higashidori nuclear power plant in Aomori and its Onagawa nuclear plant in the Miyagi region had not shown any abnormalities.
Earthquakes are extremely hard to predict, but in January a government panel marginally increased the probability of a major jolt in the Nankai Trough off Japan over the next 30 years to 75-82 per cent.
The government then released a new estimate in March saying that such a “megaquake” and subsequent tsunami could cause as many as 298,000 deaths and damages of up to $2 trillion.
- With agencies
