A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan early Tuesday local time, resulting in a tsunami warning for waves of up to 10 feet.
About fours after the earthquake hit, around 9:45 a.m. local time, Japan announced that it was lifting its tsunami warning.
The Japan Meteorological Agency reported that the quake struck around 6 a.m at a depth of 10 kilometers, or about 6 miles, according to the Associated Press.
Fukushima prefecture, located just north of Tokyo, became the site of one the largest nuclear power plant disasters in history in the wake of a huge tsunami following an offshore earthquake in 2011. The March 2011 disaster was caused by a much larger 9.0 earthquake, which caused a devastating tsunami that severely damaged the large Daiichi nuclear power station at Fukushima.
The resulting explosions and nuclear meltdowns at three of the plant’s four reactors caused a ripple effect around the world, where panic drove a push to mothball reactors in the U.S. and other countries.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nation’s nuclear watchdog, was in charge of a major safety review of U.S. reactors in response to the Fukushima disaster. A spokesman for the federal agency told the Washington Examiner that it was too early to comment on the emerging events in Japan.
“We certainly keep track of events,” but “given that the event has just occurred, it would be premature” to comment, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. He said the nation’s nuclear regulator has established ongoing communications between Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency and with the NRC’s counterparts in Japan in the wake of the 2011 disaster.
Right now, it is up to the plant operators and the Japanese government to respond to any potential safety issues, Burnell said.
All nuclear plants were taken offline following the 2011 disaster until last year when it began reopening the reactors. The company TEPCO continues to transfer nuclear fuel waste from the Daiichi plant as clean up continues.
On Monday, all power plant operators in Japan were reporting that none of the plants’ operations had been affected by today’s earthquake, according to Reuters.
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami had caused the deaths of 20,000 people and the radiocative leakage from Daiichi has made a large swath of the coastline in Fukushima uninhabitable.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
