Tokyo - A strong earthquake centered off the coast of northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-meter tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster.

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami. There were no immediate reports of death or injury.

The March 2011 earthquake and following tsunami killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years when the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed, leaking radiation into the sea and air.

Workers at the plant were ordered to move to higher ground after Friday's quake. Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, reported no irregularities at its nuclear plants.

The quake measured a "lower 5" in Miyagi prefecture on Japan's scale of one to seven, meaning there might be some damage to roads and houses that are less quake resistant.

The scale measures the amount of shaking and in that sense gives a better idea of possible damage than the magnitude. The quake registered a 4 in Tokyo.

New Bataan - Rescue workers searched on Thursday through thick mud, broken homes and fallen trees for survivors, two days after a typhoon swept the southern Philippines killing nearly 400 people and leaving at least as many missing.

Typhoon Bopha, with central winds of up to 120 kph (74 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph), was moving west-northwest of the central Philippines after ravaging the resource-rich island of Mindanao.

The National Disaster Agency put the death toll at 379 after Bopha triggered landslides and floods along the coast and in farming and mining towns inland in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental. The death toll is expected to rise.

Arturo "Arthur" Uy, governor of Compostela Valley, the worst-hit area, said estimates showed 200 had died and almost 600 remained missing in his province alone, higher than the agency's tally.

"This is the first time a typhoon with signal number three has crossed our province," he said. "We evacuated people from riverbanks and shorelines. But the floods and strong winds battered not just the riverbanks but also places where residents were supposed to be safe."

About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction. Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao, but most storms make landfall further north.

A freak tornado hit Auckland Thursday killing three people and causing "utter devastation" as wild weather ripped apart homes and caused flash flooding in New Zealand's largest city. The storm, packing gusts of more than 110 kilometers (70 miles) per hour, struck suburban Hobsonville in the afternoon, toppling trees, ripping roofs from houses and sending debris flying. Civil Defense said three people died and seven were hospitalized, with two of the fatalities believed to have been caused by a concrete slab that landed on the cabin of a truck and the other by a falling tree. About 150 homes were badly damaged, many rendered uninhabitable, forcing residents into temporary accommodation at a nearby air force base.


Resident Suzanne McFadden said the storm roared through in "five minutes of utter devastation." Police urged people to stay indoors as flash floods blocked roads and falling trees brought down power lines, blacking out about 1,300 homes. The Met service weather agency said the tornado was created by a series of intense thunderstorms that lashed the city through the day, largely dissipating by early evening, although there were fears the winds could pick up overnight. Prime Minister John Key expressed condolences to the families of the dead and praised the efforts of emergency services, who swiftly sealed off an area of about one square kilometre (0.4 square miles) that was worst affected by the tornado. -TN

Reports of earthquake-like tremors starting Tuesday afternoon and continuing until early Wednesday can't be confirmed as true earthquakes, but experts can't say what it is, either. "We started getting calls at 3:09 p.m. (Tuesday)," said Eric Meyers, Navarro County Emergency Coordinator. "The first calls were north of Corsicana in the Hickory Hollow area with two separate residents out there reporting unusual tremors being felt along with a rumbling type of noise." After checking with the U.S. Geological Survey website, Meyers also checked with the National Weather Service and state emergency management offices. "About two hours later, approximately five o'clock, there were additional reports in the same area of heavier tremors, the same vicinity, the same residents," Meyers said.

Another report came from the western part of the county, near Navarro Mills. After the second round of reports, Meyers posted it on Facebook and suddenly there were more reports, but coming from all over, including Streetman, Purdon, Pursley and Dawson. Some of the reports came from as far away as Freestone and Limestone counties. The line runs about 50 to 60 miles long, and the tremors didn't act like any other thing except perhaps earthquake booms, which are shallow sometimes undetectable tremors similar to what's been happening locally. The range and the description of houses "popping" and shaking didn't seem to fit anything, including the disturbances reported around fracking drill-sites. "This is an unexplained event likely of a natural origin," Meyers said. "We can't come up with a point of origin or a cause or explanation of why this is happening."

San Francisco - A tsunami-producing fault in Lake Tahoe is overdue for another earthquake, scientists said here yesterday (Dec. 4) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The West Tahoe Fault is capable of producing a magnitude-7.3 earthquake and tsunamis up to 30 feet (10 meters) high in the clear blue lake, where million-dollar homes line the shore, researchers said.

Earthquakes strike every 3,000 to 4,000 years on the fault, and the most recent shaker was 4,500 years ago, indicating the fault is overdue for another earthquake, said Jillian Maloney, a graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

The West Tahoe fault defines the west shore of the lake, coming on shore at Baldwin Beach, passing through the southern third of Fallen Leaf Lake, and then descending into Christmas Valley near Echo Summit.

Dubai - An earthquake measuring 5.5 in magnitude struck eastern Iran on Wednesday, killing eight people and injuring 12 others as emergency teams scrambled to rescue others and treat the injured, Iranian media reported.

People fled their homes as the quake struck and brought walls and buildings down. But others were left trapped under rubble in villages across the district of Zohan in South Khorasan province, Fars news agency said.

"Eight people have been killed in the earthquake area and one person is missing. Unfortunately a number of those injured have lost their lives in the last few hours," Mehr news agency quoted South Khorasan's crisis management director Mohammad Ali Akhundi as saying.

"Homes have sustained damage and people are out in public places and they need the means to keep themselves warm because of the cold," he said.

Iran's Red Crescent Society despatched 15 rescue teams to the affected areas to search for people stuck under the debris and doctors in the provincial capital of Birjand were on alert to treat those hurt, Fars new agency reported.

Rescue units of Iran's national Basij militia also joined operations, despatching three medical teams.

The strongest earthquakes that strike the planet, such as the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan last year, occur at particular "hotspot" points of Earth's crust, a new study finds.

About 87 percent of the 15 largest earthquakes in the last century occurred in the intersection between specific areas on spreading ocean plates, called oceanic fracture zones, and subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides underneath another, according to the paper, published recently in the journal Solid Earth. The scientists used a data mining method to find correlations between locations of earthquakes over the last 100 years, the strength and geological origin.

The bottom of the ocean is crossed by underwater ridges, such as the mid-Atlantic ridge, which runs north to south between the Americas and Africa. These ridges divide two tectonic plates that move apart as lava emerges, solidifying and creating new rock. The midocean ridge jogs back and forth at offsets known as transform faults, creating zigzag-shaped plate boundaries. Fracture zones are scars in the ocean floor left by these transform faults.

Heavy snowfall in the southeast has disrupted traffic in Stockholm, where planes have been unable to take off and many bus and train lines stopped running. Several schools closed early on Wednesday. The snowfall is expected to continue through the night. The Transport Authority has advised people in the Stockholm region to avoid traveling by car.

The weather service issued a class 2 warning for Sweden's southeast due to the heavy snowfall and winds, meaning the weather could put the public in danger and disrupt infrastructure.

"Commuters can expect the snowfall to continue," meteorologist Linnea Rehn with the weather service SMHI tells Swedish Radio. There may yet be another 10 centimetres before this evening."

Barrington, R.I. -- While authorities still do not know the source, residents are sticking to their story saying they heard a large explosion coming from Narragansett Bay Monday night.

Reports of the phantom boom kept crews busy in both Barrington and Warwick after residents reported hearing the strange disruption around 11:30 p.m.

"I was downstairs in my basement, I have small windows, and I was able to see a flash of light and it was basically the biggest explosion I've ever heard in my whole life," said Mark Etheridge, an eyewitness who lives near Narragansett Bay in Barrington.

"It shook the windows and made my neighbors alert too. The only way to describe it was like a single loud 'boom' noise that sounded somewhat like an explosion," said an Eyewitness News viewer via ReportIt.

(U.S.) - Just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, a loud boom followed by a second blast that shook windows from Cornville to Jerome, rocked the Verde Valley.

By Wednesday, the noises, whatever they were, were all the buzz.

"There was a boom and I thought, thunder. But as I was looking around for clouds I heard a second one that sounded like it came from Mingus Mountain. Then I went to see if the spring on my garage door opener had broke," says Camp Verde resident John Stephens.

Kristi Gagnon, fire marshal for the Camp Verde Fire District, said she and fire Chief Clayton Young were in the administrative offices when they heard the noises. Having grown up in California, Gagnon thought it was an earthquake.

"It had that similar sound but nothing was shaking and the ground wasn't moving. It was interesting for sure," said Gagnon.

Gagnon said she did get a report from a resident living near the Camp Verde Library who said the noise actually "shook stuff off the shelf."

Their curiosity eventually drove them outside the building, believing something had hit the roof, but found nothing there.

Chief Joe Moore with the Clarkdale Fire District heard it, too, and reported that it sounded just like dynamite.

Whatever it was, it did not appear to be isolated to the Verde Valley.