A powerful earthquake was recorded at sea some ten kilometers from the coast of Honshu, but no tsunami alert was launched.
A 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit the east coast of Japan on Monday morning, according to the United States Institute of Geophysics (USGS), but no tsunami alert was issued.
The epicenter of the earthquake was 41.7 kilometers below the seabed of the Pacific, less than 50 km from the coast of Miyagi prefecture, USGS said, saying the risk of loss and damage was low .
No tsunami alert was issued after the tremor occurred shortly after 5.30 a.m. (8.30 p.m. GMT), the Japanese news agency Kyodo said. Several tremors had already been observed at sea during the previous days.
Japan is located on the Pacific “ring of fire” , an arc of intense seismic activity that extends across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim.
In 2011, a devastating earthquake of magnitude 9.0 shook the archipelago before a gigantic tidal wave hit the northeast coast of the country, killing nearly 16,000 people.
