A day after Taiwan suffered the worst earthquake in the last quarter of a century, a
magnitude 6 earthquake
shook a
large area of eastern Japan
this Thursday , with its epicenter off the coast of Fukushima, without the tsunami warning being activated. nor have there been any damages resulting from it at the moment.
The phenomenon was recorded at 12:16 local time today (3:26 GMT) and had its epicenter 40 kilometers deep off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, in the east of the country, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. (JMA).
The tremor reached level 4 on the Japanese seismic scale (7 levels and focused on measuring surface agitation and potential damage) and the same level in the neighboring prefectures of Iwate and Miyagi.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, during an earthquake of that magnitude “almost all people are frightened, hanging objects such as lamps swing violently, and unstable decorations may fall.”
🇯🇵 NOW | M6.1 earthquake is recorded in Honshu, #Japan. (April 04, 2024). #Earthquake #Quake #Earthquake #climagram
(Depth 40 km) #Ishinomakipic.twitter.com/WDWF5eKp9W
— ⚠️Cligram Alert🌎 (@deZabedrosky) April 4, 2024
The operating company of the damaged Fukushima plant, TEPCO, said that it is reviewing whether any problems have occurred there after the earthquake, according to the state broadcaster NHK, while the JR East railway company suspended operations of the Fukushima bullet train. Tohoku, which connects Tokyo with Sendai through a power outage.
According to the Tohoku Electric Power company, no anomaly was detected at the Miyagi Ongawa nuclear power plant or in the radiation levels in the areas near it.
An aftershock of magnitude 3.8 was recorded almost two hours after that first phenomenon on the southern coast of Iwate Prefecture.
For the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the tremor reached level 4 on its seismic scale.
This Thursday's earthquake in Japan occurs after a strong earthquake hit Taiwan the day before, leaving nine dead and hundreds injured, and forcing the activation of a tsunami warning on the islands of the Okinawa archipelago, southwest of Japan.
Japan sits on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the most active seismic zones in the world, and suffers earthquakes relatively frequently, so its infrastructure is specially designed to withstand tremors. The archipelago of 125 million inhabitants experiences about 1,500 earthquakes each year, although the vast majority are mild.
Earlier this year, a long series of earthquakes, with one earthquake reaching a magnitude of 7.6, shook the center of the country, killing more than 200 people.
Video
A 7.6 magnitude earthquake shook Japan and there is a tsunami warning.
On that occasion, a tsunami warning was launched and waves 1.2 meters high hit the port of Wajima, on the Noto peninsula, at 4:21 p.m. (4:21 a.m. in Argentina), he said.
The most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan was in March 2011 and also on the northeast coast of the country. The magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by a tsunami, left about 18,500 people dead or missing.
The event also destroyed three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Video
The earthquake triggered a tsunami warning in Japan.
Thursday's shaking occurred a day after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, according to the USGS, killed nine people and injured more than a thousand in Taiwan. That episode caused the activation of the tsunami warning in that nation, the Philippines and Japan, although it was later discarded without large waves occurring.
With information from EFE and AFP.
IS