A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the Japanese coast on Saturday, geologists said, shaking buildings in Tokyo and setting off car alarms. Despite the massive intensity of the quake, there was no risk of a tsunami, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) reported. Mild tremors were also felt in Delhi-NCR triggering panic as people living in highrises rushed out of buildings.
The epicentre in Japan was 676 km below the Earth’s surface. It was centred on a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean around 870 km south of Tokyo, the US Geological Survey said. There were no reported abnormalities at any of the region’s mothballed nuclear power plants. A massive undersea quake that hit in March 2011 sent a tsunami barrelling into Japan’s northeast coast.
Saturday’s rattle was the second sizeable shake Tokyo has had this week, after a much less powerful — but far shallower — quake hit close to the capital on Monday. Japan sits at the meeting place of four tectonic plates and experiences around 20 per cent of the world’s most powerful earthquakes every year.
