Japan: Minor tsunami revives horror of March 2011 disaster

, Dec 7: Horror of mass destruction of March 2011 earthquake and

were revived in

, when the island country experienced 7.3 magnitude earthquake triggering a small tsunami on Friday, Dec 7.

"A one-metre wave hit Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture and many people heeded calls to move to higher ground before all alerts were later lifted," BBC reported.

The quake epicentre was about 245km (150 miles) south-east of Kamiashi at a depth of about 36km, the US Geological Survey said.

However, later on Japan Meteorological Agency lifted tsunami warning issued for northeastern Japan, public broadcaster NHK said.

A warning for a one-meter tsunami was issued for the coast of Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan after the country was hit by a massive earthquake, measuring 7.3 in the Richter Scale. Japan experienced an earthquake at 5.18 pm on Friday. Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan experienced the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The epicentre of Friday's quake was Honshu island.

Indian Ambassador to Japan Deepa Gopalan said that was no need to worry. "It was fairly intense and the duration was long. There are warnings. In Tokyo there is no cause to worry. We will find out if there are Indians in that area. Indian community is mostly in Tokyo and surrounding areas, far from epicentre," said Gopalan to Reuters.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was, however, unaffected. Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates the Fukushima nuclear plant, reported no irregularities at its nuclear plants after the quake.

The March 2011 quake triggered fuel-rod meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing radiation leakage, contamination of food and water and mass evacuations in the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

The government declared in December that the disaster was under control but much of the area is still free of population.

OneIndia News