Magnitude 7.2 quake strikes off Japan's coast

A tsunami alert was triggered after a powerful earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan on Monday, the country's meteorological agency said.

The magnitude 7.6 quake struck off the coast of Hokkaido, near the coastal city of Aomori with an epicenter about 30 miles below the sea surface, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said. In an earlier statement, it said it was magnitude 7.2.

It also issued an alert in the region for a tsunami of up to 10 feet.

The Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded the tsunami warning to a tsunami advisory on Monday afternoon.

There does not appear to be an imminent threat to coastal North America. There were no tsunami warnings issued for Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California, according to the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Ce