Magnitude-5.3 earthquake hits Tokyo after Japan issued megaquake advisory

Magnitude-5.3 earthquake hits Tokyo after Japan issued megaquake advisory

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 (6.2 miles), 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.