Japan Issues Tsunami Warning After 6.7-Magnitude Earthquake Off Northern Coast

A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern coast of Japan on Friday, prompting a tsunami alert for parts of the Pacific shoreline, according to AFP. The tremor comes only days after a stronger quake in the same region injured at least 50 people.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), which initially assessed the magnitude as 6.5, later revised it to 6.7 and warned that tsunami waves of up to one metre could reach the northern Pacific coast, AFP reported. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) also measured the quake at 6.7, locating the epicentre around 130 kilometres off Kuji in Iwate prefecture on Honshu.

Broadcaster NHK said the shaking on Friday was less intense than Monday’s 7.5-level tremor, which had knocked items off shelves, damaged roads, shattered windows and generated tsunami waves reaching 70 centimetres. According to AFP, the Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed there were no immediate reports of irregularities at nearby nuclear plants.

Following Monday’s quake, the JMA issued a rare special advisory warning that another tremor of similar or greater strength could occur within a week. That notice covered the Sanriku coastline at the northeastern tip of Honshu and parts of Hokkaido facing the Pacific.

The wider region still carries the trauma of the 2011 undersea 9.0-magnitude earthquake, which unleashed a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

In August 2024, the JMA issued its first special advisory for the southern half of Japan’s Pacific coast, cautioning of a possible “megaquake” along the Nankai Trough—an 800-kilometre undersea trench where the Philippine Sea plate is slowly subducting beneath the plate supporting the Japanese archipelago. Government projections suggest a Nankai Trough quake and subsequent tsunami could kill up to 298,000 people and cause as much as $2 trillion in damage. That advisory, which lasted a week, sparked panic-buying of essentials and led to holiday cancellations.

Japan sits at the intersection of four major tectonic plates on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and remains among the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. The archipelago of roughly 125 million people experiences about 1,500 tremors annually, most of them mild, though the impacts vary depending on depth and proximity to communities.

(WIth inputs from AFP)