An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 struck areas near Tokyo on Friday, the national weather agency said, adding that it did not appear to be linked to the possibility of another major quake from the Nankai Pit in the Pacific.

The quake, which struck at 7:57 p.m. in western Kanagawa Prefecture, measured less than 5 on Japan’s earthquake intensity scale of 7. The quake’s epicenter was 13 kilometers underground and no tsunami warning was issued.

Central Japan Railway Co. has temporarily suspended its bullet train operations on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line between Shinagawa and Shizuoka stations.

The quake occurred after the Japanese Meteorological Agency issued its first warning on Thursday of an above-average risk of a Nankai Trough mega-earthquake.

The warning was issued after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck southwestern Japan. The earthquake’s epicenter was in the waters off Miyazaki Prefecture on the western edge of the Nankai Trough.

The agency said on Friday the earthquake that struck Kanagawa Prefecture and its surroundings occurred outside the expected epicenter area of ​​the Nankai Trough megaquake and did not appear to be related to the earthquake that struck Miyazaki Prefecture a day earlier.

“In general, I don’t think there is any connection (between the two quakes) because they were far apart,” said Naoshi Hirata, chairman of the government’s earthquake investigation board.

The Nankai Trough is a seafloor trench that runs along the Pacific coast of Japan where the Eurasian Sea and Philippine Sea tectonic plates intersect.

Japan, a country prone to earthquakes, fears that an earthquake measuring 8 to 9 on the Richter scale could occur along the Nankai Trough in the coming decades, shaking large parts of the country and causing tsunami waves up to 30 metres high in areas.

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