W.A few days after the tenth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan, another major earthquake shook the region. At around 6:09 p.m. on Saturday, the earth shook about 27 kilometers off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture.
Patrick Welter
Correspondent for business and politics in Japan, based in Tokyo.
The quake at a depth of 60 kilometers reached a magnitude of 7.2. The authorities warned of tsunami waves. A one meter high tsunami was forecast for Miyagi Prefecture. The earthquake on Saturday evening was felt from the northern main island of Hokkaido to south of Tokyo. About an hour and a half after the quake, the authorities lifted the tsunami warning, reported the television station NHK. Nevertheless, people were advised to exercise caution because of aftershocks.
Remembering a quake ten years ago
It was not until mid-February that a similarly strong earthquake at the same location shocked the population, but it went relatively mildly. Experts stated at the time that it was an aftershock of the severe earthquake ten years ago.
The quake on March 11, 2011 triggered a huge tsunami that destroyed entire coastal cities and killed almost 19,000 people. In the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the tsunami flooded the emergency power supply and the result was a threefold meltdown. It was the biggest accident in a nuclear power plant since the reactor accident in Russia’s Chernobyl in 1986. Only a week and a half ago, Japan had commemorated the triple catastrophe ten years ago.
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