Japan observes tiny tsunami following 6.9-magnitude quake

Tiny tsunami waves hit Japan’s northern Pacific coast on Sunday (November 9, 2025) after an offshore earthquake, the national weather service said.

The first tsunami hit the northern city of Miyako at 5.37 p.m. but it was so small that the Japan Meteorological Agency said it could not measure its size.

Later, ports in Kuji and Ofunato, located in the same region, saw waves as high as 20cm while smaller waves reached other ports in Iwate, the meteorological agency said.

The quake struck around 5.03 p.m. in waters off Iwate, according to the Japanese agency which initially estimated its strength at magnitude 6.7 but later revised it to 6.9.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake as magnitude 6.8.

The Japan Meteorological Agency had issued an advisory for a possible tsunami before lifting it shortly after 8 p.m.

The original quake was followed aftershocks at magnitude between 4.6 and 6.3, the agency said.

Six other offshore quakes hit the same region earlier on Sunday (November 9, 2025), but were barely felt on land and did not prompt tsunami advisories.

The area may see stronger quakes particularly in the next several days, warned Masashi Kiyomoto, an earthquake and tsunami official at the meteorological agency.

“This is an area that has seen a series of seismic activities. It is possible that larger earthquakes will occur,” he told a televised briefing.

The region is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

That tsunami also sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing Japan’s worst post-war disaster and the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Japan sits on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is one of the world’s most tectonically active countries.

The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, experiences around 1,500 jolts every year.

The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and depth below the Earth’s surface.