Eight injured after 6,3 magnitude earthquake hits western Japan

This first assessment mentions minor injuries, notably due to falls, and minor damage.

The hypocenter of the earthquake was located near the port of Uwajima in the Bungo Strait, which separates the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, at a depth of about 25 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey USGS.

The Japanese meteorological agency JMA assigned it a magnitude of 6,4 and estimated its depth at 50 km.

“In places where the earthquake was strong, do not approach dangerous areas. There is no risk of a tsunami,” JMA declared on X in the evening, after the main earthquake occurred at 23:14 p.m. local time (Wednesday 14:14 p.m. GMT).

The Japanese Nuclear Safety Authority (NRA) affirmed for its part that the Ikata nuclear power plant, located in the region, was operating normally. “No anomaly has been detected at the Ikata power plant,” she assured.

Thursday morning, local media reported a dozen broken water pipes in Uwajima, in Ehime department. Roads were also blocked in this department due to a landslide and falling rocks.

Big scare

"I was about to go to bed when I heard a rumbling sound and knew an earthquake was coming. Then I felt a shaking the likes of which I had never experienced in my life. life and it continued to shake for 10 or 20 seconds," a fisherman told NHK television.

He added that a few small objects fell into his house but that it did not suffer major damage.

Lying at the crossroads of several tectonic plates along the Pacific "Ring of Fire", Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world.

Thus, 2.227 tremors of intensity 1 or greater on the Japanese Shindo scale (seismic intensity) were felt in the archipelago in 2023, including 19 earthquakes of magnitude equal to or greater than 6,0 according to the JMA.

The vast majority of these earthquakes are benign and even the strongest generally cause little damage, thanks in particular to the application of extremely rigorous anti-seismic construction standards.

However, many buildings – particularly in rural areas – are dilapidated and therefore vulnerable to powerful earthquakes. This was again verified with the major earthquake of January 1 in the Noto peninsula (center of the country), which caused more than 240 deaths and significant material damage.

On April 3, the island of Taiwan, southwest of Japan, suffered its most violent earthquake in 25 years, which left 16 dead and more than a thousand injured.

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, a country of 125 million people, was a magnitude 9 earthquake in March 2011 off its northeastern coast, which triggered a tidal wave that caused around 20.000 dead or missing. This tsunami also caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, the most serious in the world since Chernobyl in 1986.