Tsunami warning issued in Japan after powerful earthquake

Japanese officials issued a tsunami warning Tuesday following a strong earthquake off the island nation’s coast, The Associated Press reported.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the earthquake registered at 6.8 on the Richter magnitude scale and could cause waves more than three feet tall.

{mosads}The quake was reportedly roughly 6 miles below the sea’s surface. Shallow quakes, like this one, tend to cause more damage on land.

All seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata, near the coast, where a tsunami could hit, were offline and no abnormalities were reported, according to AP.

For context, the 2011 tsunami that killed 18,000 and caused the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster was the result of a 9.0 earthquake.