{"id":408144,"date":"2026-04-20T11:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/408144\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:27:07","slug":"japan-tsunami-alert-issued-following-powerful-earthquake-off-northern-coast-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/408144\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan tsunami alert issued following powerful earthquake off northern coast \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/japan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/japan\">Japan<\/a> Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami alert in the region after a powerful earthquake struck off the northern Japanese coast. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The quake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.4 occurred off the coast of Sanriku in northern Japan at around 4.53pm local time, at a depth of about 10km (six miles) below the sea surface, the agency said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The earthquake recorded an upper-5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, meaning the shaking was strong enough to make movement difficult without support and to topple furniture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As darkness fell, there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, however, amid warnings that other tsunami had been observed offshore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Japan\u2019s meteorological agency said earthquakes of a \u201csimilar scale\u201d could continue for as long as a week, according to the Kyodo news agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier, Japan\u2019s NHK public television said a tsunami of up to 10ft (three metres) could hit the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Authorities in Japan urged people living near the country\u2019s northeast coast to evacuate to higher ground. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Tsunami waves have been observed in several areas, prompting warnings and advisories in Fukushima, Iwate and Aomori prefectures, as well as the northernmost main island of Hokkaido. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The public broadcaster NHK showed live footage of sections of coastline, with announcers repeatedly urging people to flee before darkness fell. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It has been 15 years since the same region was devastated by a magnitude-9 earthquake that set off a tsunami and a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The disaster killed almost 20,000 people, most of whom were swept away by the tsunami. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There are no nuclear power plants currently in operation in Hokkaido and Tohoku regions but Hokkaido Electric Power and Tohoku Electric Power have a number of shutdown nuclear power plants there. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Tohoku Electric said it was checking the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on its Onagawa nuclear power plant. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Reuters reported that prime minister Sanae Takaichi said the government had set up an emergency taskforce and urged citizens in the affected areas to evacuate to safety. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Broadcaster NHK showed ships sailing out of Hachinohe port in Hokkaido in anticipation of the waves, as an alert \u2019Tsunami! Evacuate!\u2019 flashed across the screen. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Bullet train services in Aomori at the northern tip of Japan\u2019s main Honshu island were halted due to the tremors, Kyodo news agency reported. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami alert in the region after a powerful earthquake struck off the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,582,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-408144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}