Earthquake jolts southern Japan's Ehime, Kochi prefectures (updated)

Shikoku Electric Power

17/04/2024 16:02

(Updates with report on Ikata nuclear plant in paragraph 5,
earthquake background in paragraphs 6-7)
       TOKYO, April 17 (Reuters) - An earthquake with a
preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on
Wednesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
    The epicentre of the earthquake was the Bungo Channel, a
strait separating the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku,
the agency said, adding that no tsunami warning had been issued.
    Ehime and Kochi prefectures were hit by the quake with an
intensity of 6 on Japan's 1-7 scale, the JMA said. 
        No major damage has been reported so far, according to
local media reports.
  
        The Ikata nuclear plant in Ehime prefecture, where one
reactor is in operation, reported no irregularities, operator
Shikoku Electric Power  9507.T  said, according to public
broadcaster NHK.
  
        Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most
seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about one-fifth of
the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
  
        On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a
magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record,
and a massive tsunami. Those events triggered the world's worst
nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
  

 (Reporting by Mariko Katsumura, additional reporting by Yuka
Obayashi; Editing by Alex Richardson and Toby Chopra)
 ((Mariko.Katsumura@thomsonreuters.com;))