A strong earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5.0 rocked northeastern Japan on Friday afternoon. 

The quake happened off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture at the depth of about 29 kilometers around 3:19 p.m. (6:19 a.m. GMT), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The quake measured lower 5, the fifth-highest level on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, in the Fukushima town of Naraha and 4 in the towns of Hirono, Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba.

According to the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, no problem has been reported from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants in the prefecture.

The No. 2 plant straddles Naraha and Tomioka, while the No. 1 plant, the site of the 2011 meltdowns, straddles Okuma and Futaba.

A tectonic plate on the Pacific side sinks into another plate on the Fukushima side. Friday’s quake originated within the landward plate.

In a location close to the epicenter of Friday’s quake, a 7.4-magnitude temblor occurred at the depth of about 12 kilometers Nov. 22, 2016, causing tsunami that reached up to 144 centimeters high at Sendai Port in the neighboring prefecture of Miyagi.

Unlike the 2016 temblor, which registered up to lower 5 on the Japanese scale, Friday’s quake did not cause tsunami because it occurred deeper in the ground and was smaller in scale.

JIJI Press