Earthquake of Magnitude 6 Jolts Japan’s Noda City on New Year’s Eve

An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck near Japan’s Noda city on New Year’s Eve on Wednesday, December 31, according to the United States Geological Survey. The USGS reported that the tremor occurred about 91 kilometres east of Noda at a depth of 19.3 kilometres, with the epicentre located at 40.112°N and 142.889°E. Authorities said there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

Earlier in the day, a magnitude 3.4 earthquake hit Tibet in the afternoon, the National Center for Seismology (NCS) said. The quake occurred around 3:26 pm IST at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to the agency.

The latest tremor in Japan comes just weeks after a magnitude 6.7 earthquake shook the country on December 12. That quake was centred about 130 kilometres (81 miles) from Kuji city in Iwate prefecture on Honshu, the USGS noted. Following the December 12 event, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued a tsunami advisory.

Just days earlier, on December 8, Japan had been hit by another powerful quake measuring 7.5 in magnitude, which triggered a tsunami of up to 50 centimetres along parts of the Pacific coast, JMA said. The tsunami affected the Hokkaido prefecture town of Urakawa and the Aomori prefecture port of Mutsu Ogawara and reportedly left several people injured.

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Japan lies atop four major tectonic plates on the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, making it one of the world’s most earthquake-prone nations. The country, home to around 125 million people, records roughly 1,500 tremors every year, most of them mild, though the impact can vary widely depending on their location and depth beneath the Earth’s surface.