TOKYO: A powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit northeastern Japan on Tuesday triggering a one-metre (3.3-foot) tsunami wave that crashed into the coast at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Public broadcaster NHK urged residents in the region to "flee immediately" to high ground, reminding listeners to heed the lessons of the "Great East Japan Earthquake".
A massive undersea quake that hit in March 2011 sent a tsunami barrelling into the coast, leaving more than 18,500 people dead or missing, and sending three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.
An official from plant operator TEPCO told a televised news conference that a one-metre wave had hit the coast at the facility, but a spokesman for the company told AFP there were no reports of damage as a result.
TEPCO earlier reported that a water cooling system at a reactor in the separate Fukushima Daini facility had briefly stopped but that it was back up and operating.
The temporary stoppage was an automatic response, the Fukushima operator said.
Several other tsunami waves, the biggest measuring 1.4 metres (4.6 feet), hit elsewhere on the northeastern coast, according to NHK.
The public broadcaster provided rolling coverage on the earthquake, with the words "Tsunami! Flee!" written in white lettering over a bright red band in the middle of the screen.
No signs of damage were immediately evident from the broadcaster's images.
The vast majority of deaths in the 2011 disaster resulted from the tsunami.
The United States Geological Survey said the 6.9 magnitude quake, at a shallow depth of 11.3 kilometres (seven miles), struck shortly before 6:00 am (2100 GMT on Monday) in the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima.
The Meteorological Agency had earlier estimated the quake's magnitude at 7.3 but upgraded it to 7.4.
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