Japan issues tsunami warnings and tells residents to evacuate after strong earthquakes – live

Aftershocks continue to strike off the coasts of Ishikawa and Niigata prefectures, with more than 40 tremors of magnitude 3.5 or stronger felt between 4.06pm and 7.05pm.

A Tokyo resident visiting her hometown of Takaoka city, directly south of the worst-affected Noto Peninsula, for the New Year holiday, told the Guardian:

We’re not that close to the coast so tsunamis are not a worry but the aftershocks just keep coming and shaking the whole house, it’s terrifying.

Large cracks in the asphalt have opened up in roads in the local area and neighbouring Toyama city, with the tires of some vehicles stuck in the cracks, leaving some roads unpassable.

Tsunami warnings have been issued in parts of Japan after a number of earthquakes – one with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 – hit the country’s central west coast.

Footage circulating on social media showed shaking inside shops and a railway station. NHK TV warned torrents of water could reach as high as 5 metres and urged people to move to high land or to the tops of buildings.

Watch footage here:

Six people are reported to be trapped under the rubble of collapsed houses on the Noto Peninsula. No information on their condition is yet available.

The fires in Wajima city on the peninsula appeared to have destroyed at least half a dozen houses. There had been no reports of injuries or fatalities yet. Residents have been evacuated to a judo and kendo dojo in the local police station but there are reported to be no emergency supplies available for them.

Yoshimasa Hayashi, the chief government spokesperson, said at a 7pm press conference in Tokyo that the Japan Self-Defense Forces were being readied for deployment to assist with rescue and aid work in the affected area.

Hiroshi Hase – the governor of Ishikawa, the hardest-hit prefecture – is reported to have been visiting Tokyo for the New Year holidays and is unable to return due to flights and trains being suspended due to the earthquake.

Tsunami waves have reached some coastal areas, the public broadcaster NHK has reported.

Local residents have been urged to evacuate.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said there were no issues with reactors detected at any of the nuclear power plants in the affected area, at a press conference at 6.30pm.

However, oil spillages and other minor damage had been confirmed at some plants.

The NRA reported it would continue to monitor and provide updates on the situation at the 22 reactors across six plants nearest to where the earthquakes have struck.

Two of the reactors currently in operation in the area, at the Shika plant in Ishikawa, were not running at the time of the tremors due to a scheduled check.

Most of Japan’s 54 reactors have been offline since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake and devastating tsunami.

South Korea has issued alerts on rising sea levels, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The eastern Gangwon province has urged some residents to evacuate to higher ground.

A magnitude 5.6 quake hit at 6.08pm off the coast of the Noto peninsula, close to the epicentre of the strongest quake, which struck at 4.10pm with a magnitude estimated at 7.5.

Suzu City hospital in Ishikawa is reporting a stream of injured patients arriving.

Transport of the injured is being delayed by damaged roads. The hospital is using its own generators as power has been knocked out in the surrounding district.

Temperatures in the affected area are forecast to drop to around 1C overnight, with around 36,000 households estimated to be without power.

New Year’s Day is the main winter holiday in Japan and many families will have returned to visit relatives in their hometowns from major cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka.

The city of Vladivostok in Russia’s far east has issued a tsunami alert, telling fishers and others who planned to go out on the water to return to shore, Tass reported.

Tass now reports that information about an ongoing evacuation in Sakhalin has been deleted from an official website, and that the regional emergencies department now says a tsunami alert has been issued but no evacuation of the population is being carried out.