Japan has issued an evacuation advisory for the coastal areas of the southern prefecture of Okinawa after a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan.
The Philippines seismology agency has also issued a tsunami warning, while Chinese state media said tremors were felt in parts of China’s south-eastern Fujian province.
Wednesday’s strong quake knocked out power in several parts of Taiwan’s capital Taipei, according to a Reuters witness.
Television showed buildings in the eastern city of Hualien shaken off their foundations. The island-wide train service was suspended as was the subway service in Taipei.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) forecast a tsunami of up to 3m for Japan’s southwestern coast.
A 30cm tsunami reached Yonaguni Island at 1118 AEDT, the JMA said.
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 11 March 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 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.
