New Delhi: A day after a powerful earthquake hit Japan leaving at least nine people dead, fresh tremors measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck the Kumamoto city of southern Japan at around 9.55 PM (IST) on Friday.
According to the US Geological Survey, the quake’s epicentre was around 1 km from the city of Kumamoto and was measured at a death of 40 km.
The USGS had earlier reported a quake 7.1 quake at a depth of 7 km in close proximity to the same location.
In view of the intensity of the quake, the Japan Meteorological Agency soon issued a tsunami advisory, which identifies the presence of a marine threat and asks people to leave coastal regions, for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas.
Local broadcaster NHK said the advisory suggested a possible wave of one metre in height. Later, there were some reports indicating that the threat may have been lifted.
Thursday's magnitude-6.2 quake caused shaking at some places as intense as the huge earthquake that hit the country in 2011, Japan's seismology office said. Most of the victims in Thursday's quake were in the town of Mashiki in the Kyushu region in south-western Japan where an apartment building collapsed and many houses were damaged.
More than 1,000 people were injured, the BBC reported.
In March 2011, a quake of magnitude 9 struck offshore north of Tokyo, causing tsunami waves along the coast that killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered a nuclear power plant meltdown.
(With agencies)
