A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 has strickenJapan ’s northeastern prefecture of Fukushima , which wasdevastated by a 9.0 magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami on March 11.
The earthquake hit Fukushima at 2:07 p.m on April 12, just six hoursafter another quake, with a magnitude of 6.3, jolted the centralprefecture of Chiba , shaking the capital city of Tokyo andneighbouring prefectures, reported the Japan Meteorological Agency(JMA).
JMA said it had seen surge waves, but no tsunami warning was issued.
Workers at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 were ordered toevacuate. However, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., saidno abnormality was found at pumps used to cool its reactors.
In another move, Japan raised the severity level of the ongoingemergency at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on April 12from level 5 to the maximum 7 on an international scale, recognisingthat the tsunami-induced accident ranks with the world's worst nuclearcatastrophe in 1986 at Chernobyl .
Thegovernment's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded itsprovisional evaluation based on an estimate that radioactive materialsfar exceeding the criteria for level 7 have so far been released intothe external environment, but added the release from the Fukushimaplant is about 10 percent of that from the former Soviet nuclear plant.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said thegovernment was ''sorry to Fukushima residents, the Japanese peopleand the international community'' over the nuclear disaster caused bythe massive March 11 quake and tsunami. However, Edano affirmed therewas no "direct health damage" so far from the crisis./.
The earthquake hit Fukushima at 2:07 p.m on April 12, just six hoursafter another quake, with a magnitude of 6.3, jolted the centralprefecture of Chiba , shaking the capital city of Tokyo andneighbouring prefectures, reported the Japan Meteorological Agency(JMA).
JMA said it had seen surge waves, but no tsunami warning was issued.
Workers at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 were ordered toevacuate. However, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., saidno abnormality was found at pumps used to cool its reactors.
In another move, Japan raised the severity level of the ongoingemergency at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on April 12from level 5 to the maximum 7 on an international scale, recognisingthat the tsunami-induced accident ranks with the world's worst nuclearcatastrophe in 1986 at Chernobyl .
Thegovernment's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded itsprovisional evaluation based on an estimate that radioactive materialsfar exceeding the criteria for level 7 have so far been released intothe external environment, but added the release from the Fukushimaplant is about 10 percent of that from the former Soviet nuclear plant.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said thegovernment was ''sorry to Fukushima residents, the Japanese peopleand the international community'' over the nuclear disaster caused bythe massive March 11 quake and tsunami. However, Edano affirmed therewas no "direct health damage" so far from the crisis./.
