Japan earthquake today: Japan hit by 6.9 magnitude quake followed by tsunami warnings - how does it compare to 2011 tremor and where is affected?

Tsunami warnings were issued for Miyazaki Prefecture, where the quake was centred, in the south-western island of Kyushu, as well as nearby Kochi Prefecture, shortly after it struck at 9.19pm local time, according to the agency. The extent of damage was not immediately clear.

Japan is frequently hit by earthquakes because of its location along the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. Japan was rocked by an earthquake in 2011 which caused a devastating tsunami.

The magnitude of this earthquake was 9.0. The earthquake occurred at 2:46 PM on March 11 in 2011. The March 11 temblor was felt as far away as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia; Kao-hsiung, Taiwan; and Beijing, China.

A wave measuring some 33 feet high inundated the coast and flooded parts of the city of Sendai, including its airport and the surrounding countryside. According to some reports, one wave penetrated some 6 miles (10 km) inland after causing the Natori River, which separates Sendai from the city of Natori to the south, to overflow. Damaging tsunami waves struck the coasts of Iwate prefecture, just north of Miyagi prefecture, and Fukushima, Ibaraki, and Chiba.

As the floodwaters retreated back to the sea, they carried with them enormous quantities of debris, as well as thousands of victims caught in the deluge. Large stretches of land were left submerged under seawater, particularly in lower-lying areas.

Within two weeks of the disaster, the Japanese government’s official count of deaths had exceeded 10,000; more than one and a half times that number were still listed as missing and presumed dead. By then it was evident that the earthquake and tsunami constituted one of the deadliest natural disasters in Japanese history.