Its epicentre was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of 60km (36 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It shook buildings for some time after it hit, shortly after 11pm (14:00 GMT).

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told an emergency meeting of the cabinet on Sunday morning that the late-night quake had injured many people in the Fukushima and Miyagi regions.

“But so far we have not received any reports of deaths,” he said.

Japan’s disaster agency said 74 injuries had been reported in the region and also around Tokyo, but local media counted at least 104 reported injuries, from broken bones to cuts from shattered glass.

An ambulance is seen in front of a hotel following a strong earthquake in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 13, 2021 [Issei Kato/Reuters]

A collapsed wall by a strong earthquake is pictured in Kunimi, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan on February 14, 2021 [Kyodo/via Reuters]

Aftershocks continued to rattle the region in the hours afterwards and officials cautioned local residents to be vigilant. A handful of people were reported to have sought shelter at evacuation centres.

There were no immediate reports of significant damage to infrastructure, though local news broadcast images of a landslide on a highway.

Approximately 950,000 homes lost power throughout the affected region, with the blackouts appearing to be concentrated in northeast Japan, including Fukushima and neighbouring prefectures.

A worker cleans up broken bottles at a liquor shop after a strong quake in Fukushima, Japan, February 13, 2021 [Kyodo/via Reuters]

No abnormalities were reported at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which melted down in the wake of the 2011 disaster, or at the Kahiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, according to owner Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings.

“We are working quickly to collect information but we still have no details to announce. There were some unconfirmed reports about landslides but we are still checking,” Mikihiro Meguro, an official from the Fukushima prefectural government, told the AFP news agency.

‘All messed up’

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato addressed reporters after midnight and said evaluations were under way.

“As far as damage, casualties and structural damage are being assessed,” he said, adding that sections of the bullet train service had been suspended due to power outages.

“Surveys are being done at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant,” Kato added. “We have received reports that Onagawa nuclear plant and Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant are not showing any abnormality.”

Images posted online showed broken glass at a shop and items spilled off the shelves at a supermarket.

Renowned author Yu Miri, who lives in Fukushima’s Minamisoma city, tweeted a photo of her home, showing books, potted plants and other belongings strewn across the floor.

“My house in Odaka, Minamisoma city is all messed up,” she wrote.

“I hear the ground rumbling. And another quake,” she tweeted about an aftershock.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the most seismically active areas on Earth. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

Triggered by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake, a tsunami crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in March 2011, overwhelming reactor cooling systems and causing multiple meltdowns in the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Nearly 20,000 people were killed or went missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods in the massive earthquake and tsunami, which sent radiation over a large area that forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.