2nd LD Writethru: 5.0-magnitute earthquake jolts Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture, no tsunami warning issued

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0 jolted the west Kanto region of Japan at 13:24 local time on Sunday, but no tsunami warning was issued, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The temblor, which measured 4 on the Japanese seismic scale which peaks at 7, was centered in Ibaraki Prefecture which borders the Pacific Ocean and is to the northeast of the nation's capital city of Tokyo.

The weather agency said the epicenter of the quake was at a latitude of 36.1 degrees north and a longitude of 139.9 degrees east and occurred at depth of 40 kilometers.

The jolt could be felt in central Tokyo, but there were no immediate reports of damage, according to local media.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK said that the earthquake was also felt across a swathe of areas outside the Kanto region including Miyagi Prefecture, Fukushima Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture and Niigata Prefecture.

Japan's nuclear regulator said that there were no abnormalities noticed at any of the nation's nuclear plants, including the stricken Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station that was battered by a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami in 2011, which led to the worst commercial nuclear disaster in history.

The majority of the nation's nuclear plants remain offline in the wake of the disaster and for ongoing safety inspections.

Officials at the nation's major international airports said that flights were running as usual and no disruptions had occurred at Narita or Haneda airports.

Similarly, although Japan Railways (JR) East's Shinkansen bullet trains were automatically halted briefly, due to the trains' automatic system which stops the trains when there's a quake, the service has been fully resumed, JR East officials said. Endit