A magnitude 6 earthquake shook Japan after the worst earthquake in a quarter of a century in Taiwan

The day after Taiwan suffered its worst earthquake in a quarter of a century, a magnitude 6 earthquake shook this Thursday at vast area of ​​eastern Japanwith its epicenter off the coast of Fukushima, without a tsunami warning having been issued so far or any consequent damage having been reported.

The phenomenon was recorded at 12:16 local time today (3:26 GMT) and had its epicenter 40 kilometers deep off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, in the east of the country, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency ( JMA).

The quake reached level 4 on the Japanese seismic scale (7 levels and focused on measuring surface shaking and potential damage) and the same level in nearby Iwate and Miyagi prefectures.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, during an earthquake of this magnitude “almost all people are scared, hanging objects, such as lamps, swing violently, and unstable decorations may fall.”

According to state broadcaster NHK, the operating company of the damaged Fukushima plant, TEPCO, said it was examining whether any problems occurred after the earthquake, while the JR East railway company suspended operations of the Fukushima high-speed train . connects Tokyo with Sendai through a power outage.

According to the Tohoku Electric Power company, no anomalies have been detected at the Miyagi Ongawa nuclear power plant nor in radiation levels in areas near it.

A magnitude 3.8 aftershock was recorded nearly two hours after that first phenomenon on the southern coast of Iwate Prefecture.

This Thursday’s earthquake in Japan comes after a strong earthquake had hit Taiwan the day before, causing nine deaths and hundreds of injuries, and forcing the activation of a tsunami warning on the islands of the Okinawa archipelago, to the south-west of Japan.

Japan is located on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the most active seismic zones in the world, and experiences earthquakes relatively frequently, so its infrastructure is specially designed to withstand earthquakes. Every year around 1,500 earthquakes are recorded in the archipelago of 125 million inhabitants, although the vast majority are minor.

Earlier this year, a long series of earthquakes, including one with a magnitude of 7.6, shook the center of the country, killing more than 200 people.

On that occasion, a tsunami warning was issued and waves 1.2 meters high hit the port of Wajima, on the Noto peninsula, at 4.21pm (4.21am in Argentina), he explained.

The most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan occurred in March 2011 and also affected the north-eastern coast of the country. The magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by a tsunami, left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

The event also destroyed three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Thursday’s tremor came a day after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake killed nine people and injured more than a thousand in Taiwan, according to the USGS. That episode caused tsunami warnings to be activated in that country, the Philippines and Japan, although it was later dismissed without any major waves occurring.