A magnitude-5.3 earthquake hit Tokyo and eastern parts of Japan on Friday evening, the government said, a day after it issued the first-ever advisory about the risk of a huge earthquake in the west of the country.
Although damage to the areas closest to the epicentre was not immediately clear, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government had not received any reports of major damage, speaking at his Tokyo office shortly after the quake.
The quake's epicentre was in the Kanagawa prefecture south next to the capital, at a depth of 10 km, Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
Kanagawa does not lie within the western zone along the Pacific coast known as the Nankai Trough, which was specified in Thursday's advisory on a megaquake with magnitude 8 or higher.
No tsunami alert was issued after the government sent strong tremor warnings for residents in Tokyo and prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Yamanashi and Shizuoka.
Some train lines, including Central Japan Railway's Shinkansen high-speed rail services, stopped operations in regions near Tokyo and Kanagawa.
There were no reports of damage at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka and thermal plants in Kanagawa, the public broadcaster NHK said. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday cancelled a four-day trip to Central Asia after government scientists warned Japan should prepare for a possible "megaquake".
The weather agency said a huge earthquake was more likely in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.1 jolt in the south on Thursday, which left 14 people injured.
Some bullet trains between Tokyo and western Osaka are running more slowly as a precaution, so delays will be possible for about a week, the rail operator said.
Nuclear plants nationwide were also instructed by authorities to double-check their disaster preparations.
The Japanese word for "hoarding" was trending on social media platform X as people expressed concern about panic-buying and urged each other to stay rational.
Premier Kishida was due Friday to travel to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia and attend a regional summit.
"As the prime minister with the highest responsibility for crisis management, I decided I should stay in Japan for at least a week," he told reporters.
He said the public must be feeling "very anxious" after the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued its first advisory under a new system drawn up following a major magnitude 9.0 earthquake in 2011, which triggered a deadly tsunami and nuclear disaster. - Reuters
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