Powerful Japan earthquake leaves two dead and more than 100 injured

A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan's northeastern coast late on Wednesday has left two people dead and more than 100 injured.

Buildings swayed for more than a minute in Tokyo after the earthquake. There were no reports of injuries when the high-speed bullet train derailed.

The country's meteorological agency warned of more shakes in the coming days after the initial earthquake was followed by a powerful aftershock.

Toyota, Nissan and Renesas were forced to stop operations in the area.

The disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in 2004, triggering a warning for the coastline. The earthquake caused a huge wave that killed almost 20,000 people and forced the people around the nuclear plant to leave.

The Japan Meteorological Agency reported only 20 cm of waves following Wednesday's earthquake. The alert has been lifted.

Tokyo Electric said it had not found any abnormality in radioactivity levels. The company said that the fire alarms that went off at the building housing the reactor were false.

The cooling of fuel rods at the two reactor plant at the nearby Daini plant has been resumed after being stopped because of the earthquake.

Emergency services ordered people to stay away from the coast and river mouths, and told people in the vicinity of the sea to seek higher ground.

There were two shakes. Hiroko Watanabe, who runs a small company in the city, told the Financial Times that the second one was very powerful. They should fix it by tomorrow morning.

A number of items crashed off shelves when the shaking occurred, according to a retiree in northern Japan. I think everyone is okay around here. She said that they are used to this.

Immediately after the earthquake, there were sirens on the streets of Tokyo and there were power cuts in central Tokyo. The local utility said 100,000 people were still without power on Thursday.

Fumio Kishida, prime minister, said that the government was focused on making efforts to understand the situation, providing victims with support together with local authorities and offering information to people.

An emergency response office has been set up. The officials were told to gather information and not try to help the injured.

The magnitude of the earthquake was initially reported at 7.3 but was later revised to 7.4.

Four people died, but two of them were found to not have been caused by the earthquake.