[Asia Economy International Desk Reporter] The Japan Meteorological Agency announced that a magnitude 7.3 earthquake occurred off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, at around 11:36 PM on the 16th.
According to the Meteorological Agency, the earthquake caused a seismic intensity of upper 6 in the northeastern regions of Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture. This level of shaking is strong enough to make crawling necessary. Additionally, a seismic intensity of 4 was confirmed in central Tokyo, where buildings shook for about 2 to 3 minutes.
In the Kanto metropolitan area and the Tohoku region, large-scale power outages occurred. As of 11:44 PM that day, approximately 2.08 million power outages were reported in the Tokyo Electric Power service area, including 700,000 cases in Tokyo alone. A tsunami advisory was issued for Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture.
As a result of the earthquake, the cooling function of the spent fuel pools storing used nuclear fuel at Units 1 and 3 of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant temporarily stopped. NHK reported, "The pumps circulating water for cooling temporarily stopped but were fully restored after about two hours."
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in the early morning of the 17th, "No abnormalities have been confirmed at the nuclear power plants."
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