YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Two magnitude-5 earthquakes hit Friday off the coast of Japan's Fukushima prefecture, site of the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear disaster in the Pacific region.

As reports “Armenpress” citing NBC News, the quakes — which the U.S. Geological Survey measured at magnitudes 5 and 5.1 — caused no notable damage, and no tsunami warnings were issued.

But they served as another reminder of the March 2011 Tohoku quake, which created an environmental disaster and has led to hundreds of lawsuits against the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant and the manufacturers of the reactors that failed.

A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan's Fukushima prefecture early on Saturday morning, the United States Geological Survey said.

The moderate quake hit 34 kilometres east of coastal Namie city in Fukushima prefecture, where a devastating quake-tsunami in March 2011 sparked a nuclear disaster and caused massive damage.

Saturday's earthquake occurred at 2:18 am local time (1718 GMT) off the east coast of Japan's main Honshu island, at a depth of 63 kilometres, US geologists said in a preliminary report.