7.4 quake hits near Japanese islands

The quake hit at 2:19 am local time (1719 GMT Tuesday) 95 miles east of Chichi-shima in Japan’s remote Bonin island region and at a shallow depth of just 14 kilometers. There were no immediate reports of injury or damage but a tsunami one foot hit the island chain, according to Japanese television broadcasts..The meteorological agency had warned that two meter waves were expected to hit the archipelago and told people living near the coast to evacuate to higher ground, they later downgraded the alert to small waves.But it warned in a bulletin: “Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within 100 kilometers of the earthquake epicenter.””Authorities in the region of the epicenter should be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action.” The Hawaii based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a destructive widespread tsunami and no nearby islands are thought to be in the tsunami danger zone. The quake was followed just over 20 minutes later by two aftershocks, a minute apart  of 5.6-magnitude just 10 kilometers deep, followed by two of 5.4-magnitude soon after, the U.S. Geological Survey said.Around 20 percent of the world’s most powerful earthquakes strike Japan, which sits on the “Ring of Fire”surrounding the Pacific Ocean.