VOLCANO DISCOVERY


 

An earthquake of magnitude 5.0 occurred only 16 minutes ago 53 km northeast of Tokyo, Japan, Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) reported.

The quake hit at a moderately shallow depth of 54.1 km beneath the epicenter near Tokyo, Japan, early morning on Tuesday 16 March 2021 at 4:56 am local time. The exact magnitude, epicenter, and depth of the quake might be revised within the next few hours or minutes as seismologists review data and refine their calculations, or as other agencies issue their report.

Our monitoring service identified a second report from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) which listed the quake at magnitude 4.6.

A third agency, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), reported the same quake at magnitude 4.8.

Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake should not have caused any significant damage, but was probably felt by many people as light vibration in the area of the epicenter.

Weak shaking might have been felt in Sakai (pop. 26,900) located 6 km from the epicenter, Koga (pop. 58,000) 9 km away, Iwai (pop. 42,500) 14 km away, Oyama (pop. 159,900) 16 km away, Yūki (pop. 51,600) 17 km away, Shimodate (pop. 63,700) 22 km away, Tsukuba (pop. 175,600) 26 km away, Tokyo (pop. 8,336,600) 53 km away, Mito (pop. 246,500) 61 km away, and Yokohama (pop. 3,574,400) 82 km away.

VolcanoDiscovery will automatically update magnitude and depth if these change and follow up if other significant news about the quake become available.

If you’re in the area, please send us your experience through our reporting mechanism, either online or via our mobile app. This will help us provide more first-hand updates to anyone around the globe who wants to know more about this quake.

Earthquake data:
Date & time: 16 Mar 2021 4:56 am (GMT +9) local time (15 Mar 2021 19:56 GMT)
Magnitude: 5.0
Depth: 54.1 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 36.16°N / 139.82°E (Koga-shi, Ibaraki, Japan)
Primary data source: NIED