Two strong earthquakes rattled northern Japan on Thursday,*
TOKYO (AP) — Two strong earthquakes rattled northern Japan on Thursday, but neither caused any apparent damage or a tsunami.
The Unit 4 reactor building of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, damaged by a March 11 quake, is seen Nov. 12 inOkuma, Japan. A quake struck near the plant Thursday.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency said a magnitude-6.1 quake struck Thursday evening south of the northern island of Hokkaido.
It hit about 465 miles northeast of Tokyo and 19 miles below the sea surface. The agency did not issue a tsunami warning.
The shaking was not felt in Tokyo, though the morning quake was.
That magnitude-6.0 temblor struck just off the coast near the nuclear power plant damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The two shakings are believed unrelated and did not affect the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant or other nuclear plants in the region.
The March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami wiped out large parts of Japan’s northeastern coast and left nearly 20,000 people dead or
missing. The twin disasters also triggered a nuclear crisis, forcing about 100,000 people to flee their homes due to leaking radiation.
