AN earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday (Apr 17), the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The epicentre of the earthquake was the Bungo Channel, a strait separating the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, the agency said, adding that no tsunami warning had been issued.

Ehime and Kochi prefectures were hit by the quake with an intensity of six on Japan’s 1-to-7 scale, the JMA said.

Some water pipes burst, but no major damage has been reported, local media said.

Shikoku Electric Power’s Ikata nuclear plant in Ehime prefecture, where one reactor is in operation, reported no irregularities, Japan’s government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Hayashi also warned of a chance of other earthquakes with lower six on the Japanese seismic scale.

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Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude six or greater.

On Mar 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude nine earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami. Those events triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier. REUTERS