{"id":12235,"date":"2026-04-27T01:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T01:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/12235\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T01:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T01:40:31","slug":"japans-north-struck-by-magnitude-6-1-earthquake-followed-by-wildfires-prompting-evacuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/12235\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s north struck by magnitude-6.1 earthquake, followed by wildfires prompting evacuations"},"content":{"rendered":"

A preliminary magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck northern Japan early today, the US Geological Survey has reported, but there are no immediate reports of fatalities or damage.<\/p>\n

The earthquake struck at 5:24am, 18 kilometres west of the small town of Sarabetsu in Hokkaido at a depth of 81km.<\/p>\n

Last Monday, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake off northern Japan led to a short-lived tsunami aler<\/a>t and an advisory of a slightly higher risk of a possible mega-quake for its coastal areas.<\/p>\n

The warning triggered widespread evacuation orders affecting about 170,000 people.<\/p>\n

Fires in north continue to rage<\/p>\n

The recent quake came after Japan deployed 1,400 firefighters \u200cand dozens of Self-Defense Force personnel to battle mountain blazes that have been raging in the north for five days, threatening to reach homes in the coastal town of Otsuchi.<\/p>\n

Fanned by dry, windy weather, two \u200bmore wildfires broke out elsewhere in the north on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A helicopter conducts firefighting operations in Otsuchi. (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

One in Kitakata city and \u200bthe other in Nagaoka, potentially stretching firefighting resources thin as local authorities send personnel \u2060to neighbouring areas.<\/p>\n

The area burnt by the Otsuchi fires had grown to 1,373 hectares as of Sunday morning, \u200bup 7 per cent from a day earlier.<\/p>\n

Residents forced to evacuate<\/p>\n

The fires threaten residential districts of Otsuchi on the Pacific Coast \u2014 a town that lost nearly a 10th of its population in one of Japan’s worst disasters, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.<\/p>\n

Authorities expanded the scope of evacuation orders to 1,558 households or 3,257 residents by Sunday evening, roughly a third \u200bof Otsuchi’s population.<\/p>\n

“Although the Self-Defense Forces are fighting the fires from the sky [with helicopters], the dry weather and \u200bwinds are helping the fires expand,” Otsuchi Mayor Kozo Hirano told a press conference.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The area burnt by the Otsuchi fires had grown to 1,373 hectares yesterday morning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

Some residents used hoses to spray water \u200conto \u2060their houses and surrounding foliage, hoping to keep the flames at bay.<\/p>\n

“I am prepared to evacuate by my car at any time. Fire won’t be able to catch up to us since it does not move as fast as a tsunami,” said 67-year-old resident Shigeki Fujiwara.<\/p>\n

Flames up in the mountain were visible from his \u200bhome, and while his family \u200bhad already been evacuated, \u2060he said he had chosen to stay behind because he was worried about the house.<\/p>\n

Cause of fire under investigation<\/p>\n

The only casualty to date has been one minor injury \u200bsuffered when a person fell at an evacuation centre, Japan’s Fire and Disaster \u200bManagement Agency said \u2060on its website.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Climate \u200bchange has increased the frequency of Japan’s wildfires. (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

Rain is expected in some parts of Iwate prefecture’s southern coastal region, where Otsuchi is located, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.<\/p>\n

The cause of the Otsuchi fires is not clear and is under investigation.<\/p>\n

While Japan \u2060has experienced \u200brelatively few wildfires compared with other parts of the world, climate \u200bchange has increased their frequency, especially as the early spring months before the humid rainy season have been hot, dry and with winds \u200bthat can whip up flames.<\/p>\n

AP\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A preliminary magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck northern Japan early today, the US Geological Survey has reported, but there are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3805,10122,153,8,10284,7384,9043,4226,9044],"class_list":{"0":"post-12235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hokkaido","8":"tag-earthquake","9":"tag-firefighter","10":"tag-hokkaido","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-magnitude-6-1-earthquake","13":"tag-northern-japan","14":"tag-otsuchi","15":"tag-quake","16":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}