The Japan Meteorological Agency reported a magnitude 6.6 earthquake off Shikoku island’s west coast on Wednesday night without a tsunami warning.

The agency said the epicenter was the Bungo Channel, a strait separating the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. Ehime and Kochi prefectures were hit by the quake with an intensity of 6 on Japan’s 1-7 scale, the JMA said.

Shikoku Electric Power 9507.TIkata nuclear plant in Ehime prefecture, where one reactor is in operation, reported no irregularities, Japan’s government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Hayashi also warned of a chance of other earthquakes with a lower six on the Japanese seismic scale.

The quake left seven people with light injuries in Ehime and Kochi, NHK reported Thursday morning. 

The broadcaster reported minor damage in some areas, including broken water pipes, fallen streetlights, and a landslide on a national roadway.

Among the injured, a woman in Ainan in her 70s was taken to a hospital after collapsing, according to a local fire department.

In Sukumo, plans are underway to open 10 evacuation centers. The Meteorological Agency initially reported the quake as magnitude 6.4, but later revised the figure to 6.6.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami. 

Those events triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.

Sources:(1),(2),(3)

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