A tsunami warning was issued for Japan after a 7.2 earthquake struck on Wednesday at around 11:45am Japanese time (0245 GMT).

The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), issued the tsunami advisory of up to 50cm (about 20 inches) for northeastern Japan after the quake hit.

So far no damage from the quake has been reported but a 60-centimetre wave was documented at Ofunato port, half an hour after the quake hit.

“We have confirmed that small tsunami have come up on the shores, but we have no reports of damage at this point,” said Shinobu Nagano, an emergency official in the Iwate region.

“We are still trying to determine the impact of the quake.”

The tremor struck about 160 kilometres (100 miles) offshore and 430 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, 10 kilometres below the seafloor.

Yoshiyuki Sato, an official at Kurihara City, about 300 km (186 miles) northeast of Tokyo, told Reuters: “First I felt a jolt that pushed from underneath, then a big sideways tremor that lasted for about 20 seconds”.

“The tremor was relatively big but things did not fall off the shelves in the city government building,” he said.

The Earthquake Research Committee of Japan believes that there’s a 70 percent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, close to Tokyo.