Earthquake jolts eastern Japan

An earthquake measuring a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 on the Richter scale hit Eastern Japan early Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The epicenter of the earthquake was registered at the depth of some 100 kilometers (some 62 miles) in the Gulf of Japan with tremors echoing in the country’s capital of Tokyo. There were no reports on casualties and destruction to the infrastructure as well as no tsunami alert was issued, the agency said. On March 11 last year Japan's northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, followed by a tsunami that caused massive destruction and wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The disaster left up to 20,000 dead or missing, and the radiation leaks caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination, the effect of which has yet to be fully ascertained.