A strong magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan at a depth of 60 km on Saturday evening at 6:09 p.m.
In Miyagi Prefecture, where at least one person was injured, the quake measured up to a strong 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale to 7. Tsunami waves of up to 1 meter may have reached the Miyagi Prefecture coast shortly after 6:30 p.m., according to NHK.
Due to the tsunami advisory, the town of Watari in the prefecture issued an evacuation order covering 2,527 homes and 6,911 residents. Two hundred homes in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture were without power, NHK said. The quake caused the Tohoku Shinkansen to suspend services.
“Suddenly, the large tremor continued for about 20 seconds,” the broadcaster quoted a disaster official in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, as saying. “The shaking caused things on a desk to move, but they didn’t fall, and I felt the shaking was smaller than last month’s earthquake.”
The tremor was also felt in Tokyo, where it registered up to a 3 on the Japanese scale.
The quake comes a little over a month after a 7.3 temblor struck off neighboring Fukushima Prefecture. The Feb. 14 quake caused widespread power outages and left dozens injured.
It also comes nine days after the region marked the 10th anniversary of the magnitude 9.3
