(Tokyo) A 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan near Tokyo on Friday night, causing tremors in the capital without triggering a tsunami warning, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage.
The earthquake was recorded at 7:03 p.m. local time (6:03 a.m. EST) at a depth of 50 kilometers in Pacific waters off eastern Chiba Prefecture, according to the JMA.
“It felt like being on a boat floating on the water, with a sideways rocking that seemed to last more than 30 seconds,” said a presenter for national television network NHK in Chiba where the quake was struck. felt strongly.
Buildings also shook in Tokyo, but no anomalies were detected at nuclear power plants in the region, the Japanese nuclear authority said.
Rail services were briefly interrupted and runways at Narita Airport near Tokyo were temporarily closed when the quake struck.
Moments before residents of the capital felt the tremors, Japan’s earthquake warning system advised television stations to report the arrival of a potentially large earthquake.
In early May, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the Ishikawa region (center), killing one person and injuring 49.
Japan remains haunted by the powerful 9-magnitude undersea earthquake off northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left 18,500 people dead and missing. This tsunami had caused the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing the worst post-war disaster in Japan and the most serious nuclear accident since that of Chernobyl, in Ukraine.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin.
The country applies very strict building regulations to ensure that buildings can withstand strong earthquakes.