An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 jolted areas near Tokyo on Friday, the national weather agency said, adding that it appears not to be linked with the chance of a massive quake occurring from the Nankai Trough in the Pacific.
The quake, which struck at 7:57 p.m., measured at a lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in western Kanagawa Prefecture. The focus of the quake was 13 kilometers underground and no tsunami warning was issued.
Central Japan Railway Co. temporarily halted its Tokaido Shinkansen Line bullet train service between Shinagawa and Shizuoka stations.
The temblor came after the Japan Meteorological Agency issued on Thursday its first-ever advisory on higher-than-usual risks of a Nankai Trough megaquake.
The advisory was released after a M7.1 quake rattled southwestern Japan, with its focus located in waters off Miyazaki Prefecture, on the western edge of the Nankai Trough.
The agency said Friday the quake that shook Kanagawa Prefecture and its vicinity occurred outside the expected epicentral area of the Nankai Trough megaquake, and appeared to have no links with the quake that rocked Miyazaki Prefecture a day before.
"Generally thinking, I don't think there is any relationship (between the two quakes) because they are far away," said Naoshi Hirata, the head of the government's quake investigation panel.
The Nankai Trough is an ocean-floor trench that runs along the Pacific coast of Japan, where the Eurasian and Philippine Sea tectonic plates intersect.
Japan, a quake-prone nation, has feared of the possibility of a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake occurring along the Nankai Trough in the coming decades, with the potential of rattling a vast area of the country and engulfing areas with tsunami waves as high as over 30 meters.
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Japan braces for potential massive quake after M7.1 temblor
Japan sees higher-than-usual risk of megaquake off Pacific Coast
