Thousands of Japanese people had to spend the night in evacuation centers after a strong earthquake. Kyodo news agency reported that at least two people were believed to have died and the number of casualties was expected to rise in the coming days.
Dozens of buildings collapsed in several cities, leaving countless people trapped under rubble.
The magnitude 7. 6 earthquake occurred at around 4:10 p. m local time (07:10 GMT) on Monday.
Tsunami warnings were issued and then lowered. About 60 tremors were recorded after the first earthquake.
The extent of the damage was unlikely to be known until Tuesday morning, but significant infrastructure damage was evident.
National broadcaster NHK reported that the government of Suzu town, Ishikawa province, said a number of houses and electricity poles had collapsed.
According to utility provider Hokuriku Electric Power, major highways near the quake’s epicenter were closed and more than 36,000 homes were without power.
Former BBC Japan correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes – who was reporting from Taiwan – said hundreds of meters of the main highway between the towns of Toyama and Kanazawa were destroyed by a landslide.
Video from Uchinada, also in Ishikawa Prefecture, showed rippling and cracking road surfaces. Damage to Onohiyoshi Shrine in Kanazawa was also photographed.
Initially, a major tsunami warning was issued for the Noto coastal area in Ishikawa – near the quake’s epicenter – and authorities said waves could reach heights of 5 meters (16 feet).
According to local reports, this is the first such warning issued in Japan since 2011, when a powerful earthquake devastated the country’s northeast and caused waves up to 40 meters high.
The waves that actually crashed onto the Sea of Japan coast in Ishikawa on Monday were no more than a meter high.
The main warning was later downgraded to a simple warning and then a “warning”, NHK reported. Neighboring Niigata and Toyama prefectures were also placed on alert.
Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where many tectonic plates intersect.
The constant threat of earthquakes has prompted Japan to develop one of the world’s most sophisticated tsunami warning systems. There are several nuclear power plants in the affected areas, but Japan’s nuclear agency said there was “no risk of radiation leaks” from these facilities.
South Korean and Russian weather agencies also issued tsunami warnings after the quake.
The 9. 0 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 caused a tsunami that devastated coastal communities in the country’s northeast, killing nearly 18,000 people and displacing tens of thousands.
These tsunami waves caused a nuclear explosion at the Fukushima power plant, causing the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl.