New Delhi: A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale struck Japan’s Kuril Islands on Tuesday, December 27, 2023, at 2:45 pm Indian time (9:15 am local time), according to the National Center for Seismology (NCS). The quake occurred at a shallow depth of 10 km and was felt across the island chain, which lies between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan’s Hokkaido Island.
The NCS said the epicenter of the earthquake was located at latitude 44.36 and longitude 149.23, near the Kuril Islands, which are disputed between Russia and Japan. The NCS tweeted, “An earthquake of 6.3 magnitude occurred in Japan on December 28, 2023. Its center was near the Kuril Islands.”
No casualties or damage were reported from the quake, which did not trigger a tsunami warning. Japan lies in the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and is prone to severe earthquakes which have devastated the island nation several times during its history.
The German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) was quoted by Reuters as saying that earlier on December 24, an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 had hit the Taiwan region, at a depth of 10 km. Taiwan also lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire and frequently experiences tremors.
