Magnitude 7.6 quake strikes off Japan, triggering tsunami warning

TOKYO,

A major earthquake rocked Japan’s northern coast on Monday, 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 quake struck at 1415 GMT off Misawa on Japan’s Pacific coast, at a depth of 53 kilometres (33 miles).

The Japan Meterological Agency issued a tsunami warning, with a first wave hitting a port in the northern region of Aomori, where Misawa is located, at 11:43 (1443 GMT).

At 11:50 pm, another wave reached the town of Urakawa in the Hokkaido region, the agency said.

It added that both waves measured 40 centimetres (16 inches).

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.

Residents in the northern hub of Sapporo also felt the quake, triggering alarms on their smartphones.

An NHK reporter in Hokkaido recounted a 30-second horizontal shaking that rendered him unable to remain upright during the earthquake's impact.

The meteorological agency earlier warned that Japan's Pacific coast could expect a tsunami of up to three meters (10 feet).

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.