Relief follows powerful Japan quake, tsunami

TOKYO — At first, it was 2011 all over again.

“It really came back. And it was so awful. The sways to the side were huge,” Kazuhiro Onuki said after northeastern Japan was jolted Tuesday by a magnitude-7.4 earthquake, the strongest since a devastating quake and tsunami five years ago.

“But nothing fell from the shelves,” Onuki, 68, said in a phone interview, his voice calm and quiet.

Coastal residents returned home from higher ground, and fishing boats to port, after tsunami warnings were lifted along Japan’s Pacific coast. The earthquake gave Tokyo — 150 miles away — a good shake, but was much less powerful than the magnitude-9.0 quake in 2011, and only moderate tsunami waves reached shore.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which leaked radiation for miles after the 2011 tsunami, reported no abnormalities. Decommissioning work on the destroyed reactors was suspended and the site inspected.

At least 14 people were reported injured, three with broken bones, and Japanese TV showed items scattered on the floor in a store and books fallen from shelves in a library.

On the coast, lines of cars snaked away in the pre-dawn darkness after authorities urged residents to seek higher ground immediately.

The first tsunami waves hit about an hour later. The highest one, at 4.6 feet, reached Sendai Bay about two hours after the quake. By comparison, the waves in 2011 were 30 to 60 feet high.

The evacuation appeared to proceed calmly. Katushiro Abe, a 47-year-old tourism official in Ishinomaki, a city hit hard by the 2011 tsunami, was on the early shift and already in the office, but his wife and teenage daughter fled their home.