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TOKYO - Powerful earthquakes hit Japan and Indonesia on Thursday, setting off warnings of tsunami waves but causing no injuries or damage, officials said.
The Asian nations are among the most earthquake-prone in the world and both have fresh memories of killer tremors in recent years.
A 7.0 magnitude quake struck in the Pacific Ocean off the Tokachi region in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, some 700 kilometres (435 miles) north of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
"We ask people in strongly-shaken areas to be on full alert as chances of housing collapses or landslides may have increased," Takashi Yokota, the agency's quake and tsunami division chief, told reporters.
The agency warned that tsunami waves as high as 50 centimetres (20 inches) could hit the eastern coast of Hokkaido as well as Pacific shores of the main island of Honshu.
The quake hit at 9:21 am (0021 GMT).
The warning led the city of Ofunato in northern Honshu to advise 10,650 residents to evacuate briefly.
At least 146 residents fled their homes, according to a city official.
The agency lifted the warning for all regions after waves that were only some 10 centimetres high struck the coast.
Yukihiro Yamada, a municipal official in the Hokkaido town of Urahoro, told public broadcaster NHK: "The town office has not received any reports of broken window glass or injuries."
The area was hit by aftershocks above magnitude five, but they were not frequent, the meteorological agency said.
The Tokachi region was hit by an 8.0-magnitude quake in September 2003, which triggered a major tsunami and killed several people.
A separate major earthquake struck Indonesia on Thursday morning.
The local agency put the magnitude at 7.6, while the US Geological Survey measured it at 6.6.Indonesian authorities issued a tsunami alert but lifted the warning less than one hour later.
The quake happened at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) some 122 kilometres northwest of Ternate city in North Maluku province, the meteorology and geophysics bureau said.
"I felt the shaking but it wasn't really strong," said Ojihan Washab, a hospital worker in Ternate, who was not planning to move to safety.
Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the earthquake-triggered Asian tsunami in December 2004 that killed 168,000 people in the country's westernmost Aceh province.
The Indonesian and Japanese archipelagos lie on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where continental plates meet, causing seismic and volcanic activity. - AFP/vm
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