&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake strikes off Japan’s Hokkaido coast; Is it a precursor to July 2025 megaquake?")
A powerful earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck off the southeastern coast of Japan’s Nemuro Peninsula in Hokkaido on Thursday (Jun 19), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
According to the Xinhua News Agency, the quake occurred offshore and had its epicentre at a latitude of 42.8° North and a longitude of 146.4° East. As of now, there are no tsunami warnings.
According to reports, the earthquake struck Kushiro Town, Hokkaido Prefecture, at 8:08 a.m. local time (2308 GMT Wednesday) at a shallow depth off the southeast coast of the Nemuro Peninsula. It was rated a 4 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
On Hokkaido's eastern Pacific coast, the earthquake might alter tide levels by less than 20 centimetres, but damage is not a concern, it added.
While the JMA reported it as a 6.1 magnitude quake event, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported the quake as a magnitude 5.9 event, occurring approximately 107 kilometres southeast of Nemuro, at a depth of 14.9 kilometres.
Baba Vanga's predicted big earthquake to strike Japan soon?
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This earthquake comes as rumours warning of a massive earthquake hitting Japan in July 2025 are gaining traction online. The rumours, as per reports, all started with a dream in a comic book, a Japanese manga titled ‘The Future I Saw’.
The story, republished sometime around 2021-2022 is also available in Chinese, and features a vivid dream about a tsunami devastating Japan. While it is fiction, many are treating it like a prophecy as the author behind the manga previously made headlines for apparently predicting the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan, killing over 18,000 people. That eerie coincidence has only added fuel to the current panic.
Japan isn’t new to earthquake anxiety. The country lies along the volatile Pacific “Ring of Fire” — one of the most seismically active regions in the world. Last summer, a panel of Japanese seismologists did in fact warn of a slight increase in the chance of a megaquake along Japan’s Pacific coastlines. However, they did not predict a specific date.
