Japan initially issued a warning of a small tsunami after the quake, which the Japan Meteorological Agency calculated had a magnitude of 6.6, but this was later cancelled.The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 6.4 while the Taiwanese Seismology Centre estimated it at 6.3.It struck at 3:10 pm local time at a depth of over 16 kilometres below the sea floor, 115 kilometres south of Japan’s Ishigaki island and 225 kilometres southeast of Hualien in northern Taiwan, the USGS said.
Although the Taiwanese Seismology Centre did not issue a tsunami warning, its chief Kuo Kai-wen urged people near the coastline “to heighten vigilance and keep eye on any changes in sea levels.”Japan’s weather agency had said a tsunami with a height of 0.5 metres was expected along the shores of some of the archipelago’s southern-most islands but cancelled the alert after an hour.An official from Taiwan’s National Fire Agency, which coordinates rescue work on the island, said no casualties or damage had been reported.Around 20 per cent of the world’s most powerful earthquakes strike Japan, which, like Taiwan, lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.
