A major 7.4 magnitude quake struck southern Japan yesterday, the US Geological Survey said, with people in nearby coastal regions told to evacuate ahead of a possible two-metre-high tsunami.

The quake hit at 3:19 a.m. local time (1719 GMT yesterday), 153 kilometres east of Chichi-shima in Japan’s remote Bonin island region and at a shallow depth of just 14 kilometres.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injury. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no threat of a destructive widespread tsunami.

But it warned in a bulletin: “Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within 100 kilometres of the earthquake epicentre.

“Authorities in the region of the epicentre should be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action.”

Japanese television broadcasts carried a bulletin from the meteorological agency warning that a tsunami was expected to hit the coasts of Bonin island, referred in Japan as the Ogasawara islands, with two-metre waves predicted.