7.4-magnitude earthquake in Japan causes bullet train to derail

Four people died and more than 100 were injured in Japan following a strong earthquake early Thursday on the eastern coast near Fukushima, prompting authorities to issue a deactivated tsunami warning hours later. Also, a bullet train derailed.

Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said four deaths had been reported, though whether they were a direct result of the quake was still being investigated. There were also 107 people injured, he added.

The shake, of which there were still small aftershocks during the morning of Thursday, activated a tsunami alert for waves of up to one meter in the Fukushima and Miyagi regions, but this was withdrawn hours later by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

This organism only registered waves of 30 centimeters in Ishinomaki, in the department of Miyagialthough he invited the population to stay away from the coast.

The tremor was recorded at 11:36 p.m. local time (2:36 p.m. GMT) off the coast of the Fukushima region, 60 km deep, said JMA, which initially reported a magnitude of 7.4.

The earthquake caused a power outage that affected two million homes, 700,000 of them in Tokyo, the capital, indicated the energy company TEPCO. Around 30,000 were still without power in the northeast of the country in the morning.

The Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Japan indicated that no anomalies had been detected in the central Fukushima which eleven years ago, on March 11, 2011, collapsed when it was hit by a tsunami that left 18,500 dead and missing.

The authorities indicated that they are working to assess the damage caused by the earthquake and warned that aftershocks could occur.

The JR East railway company pointed out major disturbances in its network and the derailment of a high-speed train with 75 passengers and three workers north of the city of Fukushima but without causing injuries.

The Japanese archipelago is located in the so-called “Ring of Fire” of the Pacific, an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide, which extends through Southeast Asia and the Pacific basin.