A magnitude 5.8 earthquake shakes northern Japan

Tokyo.- An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 shook the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan, early Saturday morning, reported the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), without the archipelago authorities issuing a tsunami alert.

The earthquake occurred at 01:40 local time (16:40 Friday GMT) with its epicenter southeast of the Nemuro Peninsula and at a depth of 40 kilometers, the JMA said.

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The earthquake reached level 5 on the Japanese scale, with a maximum of 7, and focused on measuring surface shaking and affected areas, rather than the intensity of the tremor. “There is no need to worry about a tsunami caused by this earthquake,” the agency indicated in its most recent bulletin. For the moment, the authorities have not reported any damage in the region nor any injuries. Japan sits on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the world’s most active seismic zones, and suffers earthquakes relatively frequently, so its infrastructure is specially designed to withstand tremors.