Moderately powerful quake strikes off coast of Wakayama region, south of Osaka, no tsunami warning issued

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 struck off the coast of Japan's Wakayama Prefecture, located south of the Kansai area on Honshu island's Kii Peninsula, the weather agency here said Saturday.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the temblor, struck at 11:48 a.m. local time, and registered 4 on Japan's seismic intensity scale which peaks at 7.

The agency has, as yet, not issued any alerts, advisories or tsunami warnings based on this relatively seismically powerful quake.

The quake's epicenter was located at a latitude of 33.8 degrees north and a longitude of 135.5 degrees east, and occurred at a depth of 60 kilometers, the JMA said.

The quake also registered 4 in areas of Wakayama, Nara, Mie and Osaka prefectures, while Aichi, Shiga, Kyoto, Hyogo, Kochi, Fukui, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Okayama, Kagawa, Ehima Prefecture and the nation's capital Tokyo saw the moderately powerful and expansive quake register between 1 and 3 on Japan's seismic scale.

As of the latest reports, there have been no immediate instances of damage or injury caused by the quake, according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK, and all nuclear facilities in the vicinity of "at risk" areas have reported no abnormalities, according to local utility officials and Japan's nuclear watchdog. Endit