- The meteorological agency records two tsunami waves of 40 centimeters.
- A tsunami is expected to hit Japan’s Pacific coast, forecasters say.
- Images show shards of glass scattered across the roads.
A large earthquake struck off the northern coast of Japan on Monday; The country’s meteorological agency recorded two 40-centimetre tsunami waves and local media reported injuries.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck at 1415 GMT off Misawa on Japan’s Pacific coast at a depth of 53 kilometers (33 miles).
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning, with the first wave hitting a port in the northern Aomori region, where Misawa is located, at 11:43 (14:43 GMT).
At 11:50 p.m., another wave reached the city of Urakawa in the Hokkaido region, the agency said.
Both waves measured 40 centimeters (16 inches), he added.
public broadcaster NHK quoted an employee at a hotel in the town of Hachinohe in Aomori as saying there had been some injuries, and live footage showed shards of glass scattered across the streets.
The earthquake was also felt in north central Sapporo, where smartphone alarms sounded to alert residents.
a reporter for NHK in Hokkaido described a horizontal tremor lasting about 30 seconds that prevented him from standing when the earthquake struck.
The weather agency earlier warned that a tsunami of up to three meters (10 feet) was expected to hit Japan’s Pacific coast.
Japan sits on four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is one of the most tectonically active countries in the world.
The archipelago, where about 125 million people live, suffers about 1,500 earthquakes each year.
The vast majority are slight, although the damage they cause varies depending on their location and depth below the Earth’s surface.
