TOKYO –A strong earthquake struck off Japan\u2019s northern coast, prompting a tsunami alert from the Japan Meteorological Agency.<\/p>\n
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and hit near the Sanriku coastline around 4:53 p.m. local time (0753 GMT). It originated at a shallow depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the ocean floor.<\/p>\n
Tsunami waves were quickly detected along the Iwate coastline. Officials reported a wave of roughly 80 centimeters (2.6 feet) at Kuji port, along with a smaller 40-centimeter (1.3-foot) wave at another nearby location.<\/p>\n
Authorities urged people to move away from coastal areas and rivers immediately and seek higher ground. Residents were also warned to stay alert for aftershocks over the next week.<\/p>\n
Evacuation advisories were issued for 11 towns in Iwate prefecture, though they were not mandatory.<\/p>\n
Forecasters say tsunami waves as high as 3 meters (10 feet) are possible. Alerts were issued for Iwate, Aomori, and southeastern Hokkaido, while lower-level advisories extend south into Miyagi and Fukushima.<\/p>\n
The region has experienced recent seismic activity, including another magnitude 7.5 earthquake in December that left dozens injured.<\/p>\n
This latest quake comes 15 years after the devastating March 11, 2011 disaster, when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 22,000 people and displaced nearly half a million. The crisis also triggered a nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, forcing about 160,000 residents to evacuate. Tens of thousands have yet to return, either due to ongoing restrictions or concerns about radiation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO –A strong earthquake struck off Japan\u2019s northern coast, prompting a tsunami alert from the Japan Meteorological Agency.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7484,7480,7483,7477,7478,625,153,7438,8,3276,7386,7481,33,7482,7479,7475,7476,7383],"class_list":["post-8502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-aftershocks","tag-aomori","tag-evacuation","tag-first-alert","tag-first-alert-forecast","tag-fukushima","tag-hokkaido","tag-iwate","tag-japan","tag-japan-earthquake","tag-magnitude-7-5","tag-miyagi","tag-nihon","tag-nuclear-accident","tag-sanriku-coastline","tag-storm-station","tag-storm-station-forecast","tag-tsunami-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8502","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=8502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}