The quake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.4 occurred off the coast of Sanriku in northern Japan about 4.53pm (5.53pm AEST), at a depth of about 10 kilometres below the sea surface, the agency said.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has urged residents in affected areas to evacuate immediately and said the government had set up an emergency task force, CNN reports.
“Residents in areas where tsunami warnings have been issued should immediately evacuate to higher ground or safer locations such as evacuation buildings,” Takaichi told reporters on Monday, according to the national broadcaster NHK.
Authorities are doing their “utmost to assess the damage, implement emergency disaster response measures such as search and rescue operations, and provide timely and accurate information to the public,” Takaichi said.
“At this time, we are still confirming the extent of human and material damage, but we will receive detailed reports shortly and proceed with disaster response efforts.”
A CNN producer on the ground in Tokyo reported feeling the building they were in shake for about seven minutes.
The operator of the bullet train service that runs between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori station said the train had been suspended due to a power outage caused by the earthquake, NHK reported.
A tsunami of about 80 centimetres was detected at the Kuji port in the Iwate prefecture, and a smaller tsunami of 40 centimetres was recorded at another port in the prefecture, the agency said.
A tsunami of up to 3 metres could hit the area, the agency said. In addition to the tsunami alert in Iwate and Aomori to the north and south-eastern Hokkaido, the agency also issued a milder tsunami advisory for the coasts of Miyagi and Fukushima, south of the epicentre.
Another powerful 7.5 magnitude quake in December left dozens injured.
It’s 15 years since a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, ravaged parts of northern Japan, caused more than 22,000 deaths and forced nearly half a million people to flee their homes, most of them due to tsunami damage.
Some 160,000 people fled their homes in Fukushima because of the radiation spewed from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. About 26,000 of them haven’t returned because they resettled elsewhere, their hometowns remain off-limits or they have lingering concerns about radiation.
