Magnitude-7.5 Earthquake Hits Japan, Tsunami Warning Downgraded

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A powerful magnitude-7.5 earthquake shook north-eastern Japan late on Monday, prompting evacuation orders for about 90,000 people and tsunami warnings that hours later were downgraded.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) initially said a tsunami as high as three metres could hit Japan’s north-eastern coast after the earthquake struck off the coast at 11:15pm local time (1.15am AEDT).

Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and tsunamis from 20 to 70 cm high were observed at several ports, JMA said.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the JMA downgraded the warnings to advisories, meaning it now sees lower estimated wave heights and less risk of inundation.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has reported that a significant earthquake struck off the coast of Aomori Prefecture, with its epicenter located about 80 kilometers offshore and at a depth of 54 kilometers.

A tsunami warning is displayed on a television in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, after a strong earthquake hits off Japanese northern coast, tsunami alert issued.

A tsunami warning was activated and displayed prominently on televisions across the region after the tremor shook northeastern Japan late on Monday. The warning followed a powerful earthquake that rattled the area, prompting alerts and precautionary measures. Sources from AP and Getty, including photographer Eugene Hoshiko, captured the alerts being broadcasted in Yokohama, near Tokyo.

The earthquake was recorded as an “upper 6” on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, which ranges from 1 to 7. This level of intensity indicates a tremor strong enough to make standing difficult, forcing individuals to crawl to move. The city of Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture experienced this severe shaking.

“There is a possibility that further powerful and stronger earthquakes could occur over the next several days,” a JMA official said at a briefing.

Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes. Located in the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater.

The northeastern region suffered one of the country’s deadliest earthquakes on March 11, 2011, when a magnitude-9.0 tremor struck under the ocean off the coast of the northern city of Sendai.

It was the most powerful ever recorded in Japan and set off a series of massive tsunamis that devastated a wide swathe of the Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000 people.