Strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 jolts Japan.
Leaves hundreds of thousands of residents in Tokyo without power.
Authorities warn of aftershocks in Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata.
TOKYO: A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 jolted Japan’s northeast coast on Wednesday and left hundreds of thousands of residents in Tokyo without power.
The tremor, in the same region devastated by the magnitude 9 temblor 11 years ago that triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster, occurred at a depth of 60 kilometres, 57 kilometres off the coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
It registered as high as a 6-plus on the Japanese shaking intensity scale in some areas — too strong for people to stand — and rattled buildings in the capital.
The JMA issued a tsunami warning for the region of as high as 1 metre (3.28 ft), with public broadcaster NHK reporting waves of 20 centimetres in some places.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters his government was assessing the extent of any damage after arriving at his office following the tremor, which shook large parts of Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power Company said that around 2 million households were without power, including 700,000 in the capital, and that it was checking the condition of reactors at Fukushima and other plants, public broadcaster NHK reported.
No damage had yet been reported at those or at oil refineries on the coast, government officials said.
The radiation leak from the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant was the worst nuclear crisis since the explosion at the Chernobyl facility in Ukraine a quarter of a century earlier.
Authorities warned residents in Fukushima, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures to expect aftershocks.
Sitting on the boundary of several tectonic plates, Japan experiences around a fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
To guarantee fertiliser price stability, a cabinet committee meeting was presided over by Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister.
Senior government officials, including Industries Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain, attended the meeting.
The attendees received an update on the government’s, gas suppliers’, and fertiliser industry’s conversations. Additionally, the gas supply for the fertiliser sector was evaluated and determined to be adequate.
Throughout the Rabi cropping season, the Deputy Prime Minister ordered the fertiliser industry to maintain a continuous gas supply in order to guarantee steady production and stock levels.
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has praised the State Bank of Pakistan’s decision to lower its policy rate by an additional 2 percent, stating that the bank’s current 13 percent rate is encouraging for the nation’s economy.
He expressed optimism in a statement that the policy rate cut would encourage investment and further boost investor confidence in the country’s economy.
The prime minister said that decreasing the inflation rate also lowered the policy rate and that future inflation rate reductions will be even more pronounced.
Additionally, he expressed gratitude to the Federal Finance Minister and other officials for their work in this area.
25 defendants, including PTI officials, have non-bailable arrest warrants issued by the Anti Terrorism Court of Rawalpindi for their failure to show up for court proceedings related to the GHQ attack case.
Judge Amjad Ali Shah added nine more suspects to the GHQ attack indictment list during today’s ATC Court sessions, bringing the total to 98.
Among the 61 defendants who appeared in court were Shah Mehmud Qureshi and the founder of the PTI.
Among those charged are Khadim Hussain Khokhar, Mehr Mohammad Javed, Chaudhary Asif, Zakir Ullah, Azeem Ullah, Shireen Mazatri, Major Retired Tahir Sadiq, and former MPA Rashid Hafeez.
A plea to cancel the bail of 23 suspects, including Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has also been filed by the prosecution side.
In the GHQ attack, there were 119 accused in total.