EARTHQUAKE HITS JAPAN

North-east Japan was hit by an earthquake on Wednesday night.

The 7.3 magnitude tremor struck at 23:36 local time at a depth of 57 kilometres and in the same region as the earthquake that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster 11 years ago.

Officials have reported that so far two people have died and at least 90 were injured.

The BBC reports that immediately after the event, Japan’s meteorological agency issued an advisory for tsunami waves of one meter for parts of the north-east, but Japanese broadcaster NHK is now reporting that it has been withdrawn.

The earthquake cut electricity to about 700 000 homes in the capital Tokyo while 156 000 homes in the north-east were left without power. Supplies have since been restored to many of the households affected by the outage.

Local media reported that a number of people across north-eastern Japan were hurt by falling objects or in falls, and in the city of Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, one man in his sixties had died.

At a media briefing with reporters, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the government was still trying to assess the extent of the damage.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the most powerful earthquake in the country’s history. It struck 11 years ago and killed 18 000 people when the earthquake triggered a tsunami and destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Radiation leaked from the plant and caused a major disaster.

Nuclear authorities said that no abnormalities had been detected after Wednesday night’s earthquake at the damaged Fukushima site, reports the BBC.

Image credit: Bloomberg