Magnitude 5.3 earthquake rocks Japan’s Fukushima prefecture

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Police officers in radiation protection suits bow their heads to offer prayers in silence for tsunami victims in Namie, near the striken TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture on March 11, 2013. A magnitude 5.3 earthquake rocked Japan’s Fukushima prefecture early Friday morning, US seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued. –AFP

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake rocked Japan’s Fukushima prefecture early Friday morning, US seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued.

The epicentre of the earthquake was 22 kilometres (14 miles) below the ground, according to the US Geological Survey. It struck 20 kilometres west of the city of Iwaki, bordering the Pacific Ocean, at 02.25 am (1725 GMT).

The epicentre was also about 50 kilometres southwest of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which was crippled by the major quake and tsunami in March, 2011.

The Japan Meteorological Agency, which put the quake at magnitude 5.8, said no tsunami warning had been issued.

The tremor caused buildings to shake in the capital Tokyo, 175 kilometres away, an AFP reporter there said.

It came just hours after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toured the Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday, ordering its operator Tokyo Electric Power to fix radioactive water leaks there.

TEPCO said in a statement to Kyodo news agency that no abnormalities in radiation or equipment were observed at the plant after the quake.–AFP