{"id":23004,"date":"2026-05-15T12:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/23004\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:23:25","slug":"japan-hit-by-powerful-6-7-magnitude-earthquake-as-warnings-issued-for-five-prefectures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/23004\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan hit by powerful 6.7-magnitude earthquake as warnings issued for five prefectures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p>Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n<p>A powerful earthquake measuring magnitude 6.7 has struck off the coast of the Japanese region of Miyagi, north of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/tokyo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tokyo<\/a>, prompting the government to issue emergency warnings to people in five prefectures.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese authorities rated Friday\u2019s earthquake a five on its 1-7 intensity scale, but said there was no immediate risk of a tsunami.<\/p>\n<p>The focus of the 8.22pm (local time) quake was off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vlyaD-powerful-earthquake-strikes-japan.png\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Locator map of where the powerful 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck in Japan's Miyagi prefecture (outlined)\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn\"\/>Locator map of where the powerful 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck in Japan&#8217;s Miyagi prefecture (outlined) (The Independent)<\/p>\n<p>The US Geological Survey said the earthquake\u2019s epicentre was 50km east of the town of city of Ofunato and at a relatively large depth of around 43km.<\/p>\n<p>The USGS revised the magnitude of the quake from 6.6 to 6.7.<\/p>\n<p>The earthquake also registered a lower 5 on the Japanese scale in the cities of Tome, Osaki and Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, according to reports in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/japan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Japan<\/a> Times. The new site added that areas of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures also saw the quake register a 4 on the Japanese scale.<\/p>\n<p>More follows<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3805,2840,8,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-23004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-earthquake","9":"tag-horizontal","10":"tag-japan","11":"tag-nihon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23004","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=23004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}