7.6-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Off Japan’s East Coast; Tsunami Warnings Issued

A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Japan late Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and brief power outages but no immediate reports of major damage or casualties, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

The quake hit at 11:15 p.m. local time off the coast of Aomori Prefecture at a depth of about 80 kilometers, the agency said. Shaking reached an “upper 6” on Japan’s seismic intensity scale of 1 to 7—strong enough to make standing difficult and capable of toppling heavy furniture and damaging walls and windows.

JMA issued tsunami warnings for Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, with waves between 20 and 70 centimeters recorded at multiple ports. Public broadcaster NHK said a broader tsunami alert was issued roughly 10 minutes after the quake, warning coastal residents that waves could reach up to three meters and urging immediate evacuation.

Utility operators Tohoku Electric Power and Hokkaido Electric Power reported no abnormalities at nearby nuclear power facilities. Tohoku Electric initially reported thousands without power, later revising the estimate to a few hundred households.

Some train services operated by East Japan Railway were temporarily suspended. As of Monday evening, NHK said there were no significant reports of damage.

A JMA official cautioned that aftershocks, including potentially strong ones, could occur in the coming days.

The earthquake briefly weakened the Japanese yen, though the currency later recovered some ground.

Japan sits along the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire” and experiences frequent earthquakes, including roughly 20% of the world’s magnitude-6.0 or greater quakes.

The region devastated Monday is the same area struck by the catastrophic 2011 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.