“The latest earthquakes occurred due to a lateral shift of a fault in a place where no active faults are known to exist, but it is known from past cases that temblors tend to occur frequently in this area,” Ayataka Ebita, director of the agency’s Earthquake and Tsunami Observation Division, said at a press conference.
In 2000, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake occurred in the western Tottori area, located east of the epicentres of Tuesday’s temblors, registering upper 6 in some areas.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government set up a liaison office at the crisis management centre of the prime minister’s office.
In the western area of Tottori, class 4 long-period ground motion, the strongest in the four-level scale, was observed on Tuesday.
AloJapan.com