Powerful earthquake rocks Niigata, nearby areas in Japan

June 19, 2019

Tokyo--A powerful earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.8 rocked Japan's Niigata Prefecture and nearby areas on Tuesday night, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The agency issued a tsunami advisory for Niigata and the neighboring prefectures of Yamagata and Ishikawa.

The earthquake registered upper 6, the second highest level on Japan's seismic intensity scale, in the Niigata city of Murakami.

It logged lower 6 in the Yamagata city of Tsuruoka, north of Niigata, and lower 5 in Kashiwazaki, another Niigata city, the Yamagata city of Sakata and Yurihonjo, Akita Prefecture, north of Yamagata.

The quake occurred at a depth of about 10 kilometers off the Sea of Japan coast in Yamagata at around 10:22 p.m. (1:22 p.m. GMT), the agency said.

No problem was reported at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station, following the earthquake. Jiji Press