The strong earthquake that struck Japan late Monday night (local time), where several tsunami waves of 70 centimeters high were recorded, resulted in at least 30 people being injured, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced today.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned citizens that the 7,6-magnitude earthquake in the sea area, off the northern Aomori region, at 23:15 (local time; 16:15 Greek time), may be followed by strong tremors in the coming days.
Prime Minister Takaichi urged the population to take measures to protect themselves in the event of new tremors.
Among the injured is a seriously injured person on the island of Hokkaido, the northernmost of the archipelago, according to Japan's fire and disaster management agency, which recommended that 28.000 citizens be urgently evacuated from their homes.
In Sapporo, the largest city on the island of Hokkaido, an AFP journalist reported that the ground shook violently for about thirty seconds, while warning messages rang out incessantly on residents' mobile phones.
Live footage showed broken glass strewn across the streets. When dawn broke, residents noticed that some roads had been damaged as snow began to cover the ground in the area.
"When we felt the earthquake and the alarm system went off, we rushed out of the house. We were holding our children" - a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy - "in our arms. The earthquake reminded me of the disaster" in Fukushima in 2011, Daiki Shimohata, 33, a municipal employee in the city of Hashikami, in Aomori prefecture, told AFP.
"Objects fell" from shelves and "dust of some kind from the ceiling," he found after going to a municipal facility.
About 2.700 homes are without power in Aomori, according to Kyodo news agency, while fires have been reported.
The JMA, in its initial emergency tsunami warning bulletin, said waves could reach three meters and urged citizens in areas closer to the epicenter to seek shelter.
Disruption of railway services
Shinkansen high-speed train services were suspended in some areas for track inspections.
For its part, the Tohoku Electric Power company reported that no abnormalities were detected at the two nearest nuclear power plants, in Higashidori (Aomori) and Onagawa (Miyagi).
The Asian country is still reeling from the horrific 9 magnitude earthquake in March 2011, which triggered a massive tsunami and left some 18.500 dead and missing.
The disaster also led to the meltdown of three of the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the worst disaster of its kind since Chernobyl in Ukraine.
Japan, located above the point where four tectonic plates intersect, on the so-called Pacific Ocean Ring of Fire, has one of the highest seismicity rates on the planet.
The archipelago of 125 million people experiences around 1.500 felt earthquakes a year. Most are weak, but the damage varies depending on the epicenter and the ground.
In January, a group of experts advising the government slightly increased the probability of a major earthquake on the Nankai fault, off the coast of Japan, within the next thirty years: it raised it to 75-82%.
The government then released a new estimate in March, indicating that such a "megaquake" and the tsunami it would trigger could kill up to 298.000 people and cause material damage worth up to $2 trillion.
