Japan has lifted a tsunami advisory issued after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 hit the country's north-eastern region earlier on Friday.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) earlier put the earthquake's preliminary magnitude at 6.7.
The quake occurred off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, in the north of Honshu, the main Japanese island, at a depth of 20 kilometres at 11:44am (Tokyo time), the agency said.
Officials were urging people living near the coast to evacuate inland, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.
Sendai City in the north-eastern prefecture of Miyagi issued an evacuation order.
Friday's quake followed a 7.5 magnitude earthquake earlier this week in the north that caused injuries, light damage and a tsunami in Pacific coastal communities.
After Monday's earthquake, the government issued a special advisory warning residents across a wide area, from Hokkaido in the north to Chiba, east of Tokyo, to be on alert for an increased possibility of a powerful earthquake hitting again within a week.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes.
The country accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes that reach a magnitude-6.0 or greater.
In 2011, a magnitude-9 quake and tsunami hit an area just north of the Japanese coast, killing nearly 20,000 people.
ABC/wires
