The Maltese embassy in Beijing is currently trying to locate the 30 or so Maltese in Japan to check about their safety, sources said this morning.
A massive earthquake initially measured at 8.8-magnitude and later upgraded to 8.9 shook Japan at 6.45 this morning (the afternoon in Japan), unleashing a powerful tsunami that sent ships crashing into the shore and carried cars through the streets of coastal towns.
A number of fatalities were reported in the north east of the country particularly the Pacific coastal area of Miyagi on the main Honshu island, police said. TV footage showed widespread flooding in the area. People spoke of 'a wall of water'.
A number of people were buried by landslides.
Ray Bondin, currently in Tokyo for an international meeting to advise the government on a proposed new world heritage site, said that at 2.45 p.m. (Tokyo time) the 30-floor skyscraper where the conference was being held, started shaking slowly.
"The Japanese continued with the meeting though looking anxiously one at another, but suddenly the building really started shaking and went on doing so for more than three minutes.
"The building then took around another fifteen minutes to slowly slowly readjust itself.
"The Japanese were all very concerned, saying they never had such a bad one in Tokyo.
"People ran out in the streets but there was calm everywhere. They closed the elevated highways. Trains stopped. Mobile phones and sms could not be used as people tried to reach home. Since then we had many aftershocks, some quite strong. Everyone has been advised if possible to stay in the buildings which are safe. In any case all the lifts have stopped, which they do automatically,."
Dr Bondin siad that as his hotel room was on the 27th floor he could not return to the hotel, where all doors had been opened as a precaution.
AFP said an eight-metre tsunami was seen at the port in Sendai city.
Four million households were without power but no leakage was reported from nuclear power stations.
The quake demolished buildings in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area with 30 million people.
An oil refinery was on fire and at least six other fires were reported in Tokyo, where the subway system stopped, sirens wailed and people streamed out of buildings.
The first quake struck about 382 kilometres (237 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the US Geological Survey said, revising the magnitude from an earlier 7.9.
Japan, is located on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and dotted with volcanoes, and Tokyo is situated in one of its most dangerous areas.
A tsunami warning was issued for Japan, Taiwan, Russia and the Mariana Islands, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Officials warned of six-metre high waves.
"An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicentre within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours," the centre said in a statement.
It also put the territories of Guam, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Micronesia and Hawaii under a lower tsunami watch.
The yen fell to 83.30 against the dollar from 82.81 before the quake struck.
The mega-city of Tokyo sits on the intersection of three continental plates -- the Eurasian, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates -- which are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government's Earthquake Research Committee warns of a 70 percent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The last time a "Big One" hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city.
More recently, the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more then 6,400 people.
More than 220,000 people were killed when a 9.1-magnitude quake hit off Indonesia in 2004, unleashing a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in countries around the Indian Ocean as far away as Africa.
Small quakes are felt every day somewhere in Japan and people take part in regular drills at schools and workplaces to prepare for a calamity.
Nuclear power plants and bullet trains are designed to automatically shut down when the earth rumbles and many buildings have been quake-proofed with steel and ferro-concrete at great cost in recent decades.
RUSSIAN KURIL ISLANDS, US WEST COAST ON TSUNAMI ALERT
Russia's emergency ministry issued a tsunami warning for the Kuril Island chain after a powerful quake struck off Japan, officials said.
"A potential tsunami warning is declared" for the Kuril chain that includes four islands claimed by Japan, a spokeswoman for regional emergencies ministry told AFP.
"People are being evacuated," spokeswoman Yekaterina Potvorova said, adding that ships had been ordered to leave ports.
Meanwhile, the United States placed the West Coast and Hawaii on tsunami "watch".
The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said that any tsunami generated by the earthquake would hit Hawaii at around 2:45 am (1245 GMT) and the West Coast at 7:45 am (1545 GMT).
"With an earthquake of this size, we could definitely see some water on the West Coast," said Cindy Preller, a watcher at the center.
She added that some sparsely populated western Alaskan islands were under "advisory," meaning that residents should clear beaches and, if there is time, harbors.
A "watch" represents a lesser state of alert than "warning," and does not call for any immediate action.
TOKYO DISNEYLAND HIT BY 'LIQUEFACTION'
The car park at Tokyo Disneyland was drenched with water-logged segments from the ground following the earthquake.
It was earlier reported that a tsunami might have caused the inundation but police said the phenomenon was due to liquefaction of soil caused by the intense shaking of the tremor.
There were 69,000 people at the Disneyland and the adjacent Tokyo Disney Sea, built on a landfill in Tokyo Bay, when the quake occurred, a spokesman at the local Urawa police station said.
There were no injuries or property damage reported at the theme parks, he told AFP.
"The visitors have been evacuated to safe places but there are many puddles due to liquefaction around the theme parks," he said.
PHILIPPINES TELLS RESIDENTS TO LEAVE COASTAL AREAS
The Philippine government strongly urged residents of its Pacific coast to "go farther inland" amid a tsunami threat following the Japan earthquake, the civil defence office said.
The first tsunami waves reached the Kuril Islands chain on Friday after a powerful quake struck off Japan, prompting Russia to evacuate 11,000 people, officials said.
TSUNAMI WAVES REACH KURIL ISLANDS - RUSSIAN OFFICIALS
Small tsunami waves reached two of the archipelago's four southernmost islands, with waves at Shikotan Island reaching one metre and waves at Kunashir Island 95 centimeters, a representative of the Sakhalin Tsunami Centre told AFP.
"The second and third waves may be bigger," she said by telephone from Sakhalin Island, where the centre is based.
Along with Iturup and Habomai, Kunashir and Shikotan are the Kuril chain's southernmost islands that are at the heart of Russia's territorial dispute with Japan.
Earlier today, Russia declared a tsunami warning for the entire Kuril Island and ordered the evacuation of 11,000 people, officials said.
The natural resources ministry said in a separate statement that all economic activity had been suspended on the islands.
Emergencies ministry spokeswoman, Yekaterina Potvorova, speaking to AFP earlier in the day, played down the potential threat of the tsunami, saying that waves were expected to reach around two metres.
The tsunami warning does not include Sakhalin Island that lies close to the Kurils, she added.
Russia's territorial dispute with Japan surrounds the Kuril chain's southernmost four islands -- known in Russian as Iturup, Shikotan, Habomai and Kunashir -- which are still claimed by Tokyo and collectively known in Japan as the Northern Territories.
MAJOR EXPLOSION AT PETROCHEMICAL COMPLEX
A major explosion hit a petrochemical complex in the northeast city of Sendai hours after the earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami, media reports said.
DAM BREAKS IN NORTHEAST JAPAN, WASHES AWAY HOMES
A dam in Japan's northeast Fukushima prefecture broke and homes were washed away, Kyodo news reported.