Tokyo, April 14: Another strong quake has hit off northeast Japan, increasing the number of aftershocks following the country’s 9.0-magnitude quake last month, US Geological Survey says.
The 6.1-magnitude undersea quake struck at 5:57 a.m. local time (1957 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of just 11.2 kilometers (seven miles) and 190 kilometers east of Morioka on Honshu Island, AFP quoted the USGS as saying on Thursday.
Japan’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, however, did not issue a tsunami warning.
Japan has been hit by frequent aftershocks as the country is grappling with the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, battered in the massive March 11 quake which triggered a devastating tsunami as well.
On Wednesday, the president of Japan’s Fukushima operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) once again apologized for the nuclear crisis from the crippled plant. This came after Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised the level of the country’s radiation crisis to seven, the same as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster back in 1986.
According to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the amount of radiation emissions released at the Fukushima plant is equivalent to 10 percent of that in the Chernobyl accident.
TEPCO said that workers have not been evacuated and that the effort to remove 60,000 tons of highly radioactive water from reactor buildings continues normally.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has ruled out a rise in health risks outside the exclusion zone of Fukushima plant.
According to the National Police Agency, the number of the dead and missing from the March quake and tsunami now stands at over 28,000.
——–Agencies