A powerful earthquake struck Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido early Monday, US and Japanese meteorological agencies reported, the latest in a series of strong tremors to hit the island nation.
The 6.2-magnitude quake struck at 5:23 a.m. (2123 GMT Sunday) in Hokkaido’s southern region, at a depth of 83 kilometers (52 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency reported, revising its preliminary estimate of 6.1.
No tsunami warning was issued, the JMA said, and the US Geological Survey predicted damage to property and threat to life was minimal, given the limited population in the region, about 200 kilometers east of Sapporo.
But “in areas that experienced strong shaking, the danger of falling rocks and landslides has increased,” a JMA official told reporters.
The JMA also warned that the risk of experiencing several earthquakes of the same strength in the area in the coming week is high.
Hours earlier, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake occurred in the ocean a few hundred kilometers south of Hokkaido.
The tremors come less than a week after the JMA warned of an increased risk of a mega-quake – 8.0 or stronger – following last Monday’s 7.7 earthquake off northern Iwate prefecture.
Six people were reported injured as a result of the earthquake, which shook large buildings in Tokyo, hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter.
In addition, 80-centimeter (31-in) tsunami waves hit a port in Iwate, while small waves also hit other places in northern Japan.
Afterwards, the JMA said, “the probability of a new, huge earthquake occurring is relatively higher than during normal times”.
Japan is one of the world’s most seismically active countries, sitting atop four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire.”
The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences around 1,500 shocks each year and accounts for around 18% of the world’s earthquakes.
Japan is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that killed or injured about 18,500 people and caused a devastating meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
