A MAJOR quake of magnitude 7.6 struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands, last night triggering a tsunami watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the US Geological Survey reported.
The USGS said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.7, struck at 8.55pm Irish time. It was shallow, at a depth of 33km, and was centred 260km north of Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami watch for the region.
"Earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a destructive local tsunami and sometimes a destructive regional tsunami along coasts located usually no more than a thousand kilometres from the earthquake epicentre," the tsunami centre said in its bulletin.
Meanwhile, a strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 jolted eastern and central Japan early yesterday, throwing food and bottles from shop shelves and rattling houses across Tokyo.
"There are no reports of fire. Someone hurt their leg after a TV fell off a shelf and was taken to hospital," Kinichi Tashiro, a fire department official in Yaizu, Shizuoka, said. - (Reuters)