Tokyo: A 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook the Japanese capital Tokyo and surrounding areas on Thursday evening, but no tsunami warning was issued, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Initial information from the JMA put the epicentre of the quake in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, and said it struck at 10:41pm (1341 GMT) with a depth of 80 kilometres. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The government has set up an emergency response task force, it added.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20% of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami. Those events triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
