7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes off Japanese coast, USGS says
Table indicating the escape route in the case of tsunamis. (Getty stock photo)
(TOKYO) — A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday off Japan’s northeastern coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said, prompting authorities to issue tsunami warnings and advisories along parts of the coast that were later downgraded to advisories and then cancelled.
“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters, hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 km of the earthquake epicenter,” USGS said after the quake was detected.
The Japan Meteorological Agency initially said tsunami warnings were in place for some of the coast along the Pacific, along with lesser advisories and forecasts farther away from the quake’s center.
“Residents in areas where tsunami warnings have been issued should immediately evacuate to higher ground or evacuation buildings and other higher, safer locations,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said.
The tsunami waves that were expected to have been the highest struck the coast within hours, with the largest one registering about 80 cm, or about 2.5 feet, but officials said they had not ruled out further waves. Official warnings were still in place, although the U.S. weather officials said in an update that, based on available data, “the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed.”
Preliminary U.S. data pinpointed the quake about 100 km, or about 62 miles, off the eastern coast of Miyako, USGS said. Light rumbling could be felt as far away as Tokyo. A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck nearby about 40 minutes afterward, according to USGS data.
The Japanese agency held a press conference on Monday, during which it identified the quake as having been a 7.5 magnitude one. The depth was 10 km, or about 6.2 miles. It occurred at 4:53 p.m. local time, the agency said.
A tsunami warning was issued under twenty seconds after the initial earthquake, an official said. Officials warned people to stay on the alert for about week, as an equal or lesser than quake may occur. The risk was especially elevated for the next two or three days, officials said.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said a “destructive” Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected “and there is no threat to Hawaii.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
Iranians hold national flags as they gather in Tehran’s Revolution Square after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, on April 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — As President Donald Trump pulled back from threats to annihilate “a whole civilization” when the Iranian regime agreed to a ceasefire and open the critical Strait of Hormuz, some people in the Islamic Republic expressed relief after juggling feelings ranging from despair to doom.
Trump had given the Iranian regime a deadline of 8 p.m. ET Tuesday — which would have been Wednesday, April 8, at 3:30 a.m. in Tehran — for the Iranian government to strike a peace deal or risk the destruction of all bridges and power plants in Iran.
He later extended the deadline to two more weeks as Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz and work to forge a peace deal.
Sohreh, a 33-year-old journalist and resident of Tehran, told ABC News she felt an immediate sense of “relief” when she heard that a ceasefire agreement had been brokered.
“My heart was about to stop,” Sohreh said in a written message to ABC News of the hours she and other Iranian citizens spent on Tuesday bracing for the massive U.S. to strike on its power plants, bridges and infrastructure before the attack was called off. “I cried all day for Iran and prayed to a God I don’t believe in: ‘A miracle, please, send a miracle. I can’t live after the destruction of Iran.'”
Leading up to the ceasefire announcement, Iranians who have been in contact with ABC News throughout the conflict, which began with a Feb. 28 U.S.-Israel joint attack, recalled moments of joy as it appeared the Iranian regime was about to be toppled and disappointment that the Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) had refused to give up the fight.
An internet blackout imposed by the regime has made it challenging to communicate with people inside Iran, so it’s difficult to gauge how people in the country are feeling. Some have managed to get messages to ABC News.
“I am against the regime and I want them gone with every cell of my body. I have participated in the protests against the regime. But by no means I agree with a foreign power destroying what has been built by my people, for my people, and for the future of our children,” Fatemeh, a 40-year-old engineer who lives in Tehran, told ABC News in a written statement on Monday.
Citing security reasons, Iranians like Fatemeh and Sohreh who have communicated with ABC News, spoke on condition that their real names not be used.
Sohreh recalled a rollercoaster of emotions since the conflict began, from hope that the regime would be toppled to despair that it was hanging on and prolonging the pain of regular Iranians.
“I danced so much to the news of Khamenei’s death, so much that my legs hurt and I fell,” Sohreh said in a message to ABC News on Monday, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, who was assassinated in a strike on the first day of the conflict.
But as the war dragged on, Sohreh said she battled doubts that the U.S.-Israel attacks would bring the regime to its knees. “We ask ourselves what if the war continues?” she said.
“When they hit Asaluyeh, everyone was feeling terrible,” Sohreh said of Monday’s strike by Israel Defense Forces on Iran’s southern petrochemical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf port city of Asaluyeh. “We wonder what to do if they hit the infrastructure. They don’t belong to the Islamic Republic. They are built by our own children. They belong to Iran and the future of Iran.”
On Tuesday morning, Trump posted an ominous message on his social media platform, saying, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote. “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
During a news conference on Wednesday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared “a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield.
“A capital V military victory,” said Hegseth, adding that the U.S. military had “achieved every objective.”
Hegseth said that prior to the ceasefire being announced, the U.S. military was prepared to carry out the threat Trump made on Tuesday morning.
“Had Iran refused our terms, the next target would have been their power plants, their bridges and oil and energy infrastructure, targets they could not defend and could not realistically rebuild. It would have taken them decades. And we were locked and loaded,” Hegseth said.
He added, “President Trump had the power to cripple Iran’s economy in minutes, but he chose mercy. He spared those targets because Iran accepted the ceasefire under overwhelming pressure.”
Trump’s ominous statement on Tuesday came after he told reporters on Monday during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, “The Iranian people, when they don’t hear bombs go off, they’re upset.”
“They want to hear bombs because they want to be free,” Trump said without attributing where he was getting his information from.
He went on to claim that the only reason Iranian civilians have not taken to the streets en masse to demonstrate against the regime is that “they will be shot immediately, and that’s an edict. That’s in writing.”
Leila, a 36-year-old resident of Tehran who works as a manager of a shipping company, said she agreed with Trump, telling ABC News on Monday that when she doesn’t hear bombs, she feels “upset.” Leila, who described herself as anti-regime, said she longs for the day she sees American soldiers in Iran to save them.
In an earlier message Leila sent to ABC News on March 30, she said, “We don’t have fear from the missile attacks, we just get very happy to watch them burning the bases of the IRGC.”
Darius, a 38-year-old anthropologist from Tehran, told ABC News in a message sent on March 25 that he was initially anti-regime, but as the bombing continued, his opinion of the regime had started to change.
“The noise of the bombs and the fact that they are actually killing a lot of civilians pushes us more towards let’s say rallying around the flag,” Darius wrote. “We are fighting this war as a country and even though the Iranian state is not my cup of tea and even though I detest many of the things they do, still, I prefer to stand by their side against a Nazi in the White House.”
At least 3,546 people, including 244 children and 1,616 other civilians, have been killed in Iran due to the U.S.-Israeli strikes since the war began, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News agency reported on Sunday.
Peel Regional Police and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau will announce details and arrests made concerning the theft of gold from Pearson International Airport in Toronto, April 17, 2024. Peel Regional Police
(TORONTO) — Authorities arrested one of the alleged masterminds in the biggest gold heist in Canadian history Monday morning as he landed at the same airport where the caper occurred in April 2023.
Arsalan Chaudhary was taken into custody at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport as he arrived on a flight from Dubai, police in Peel told ABC News. He is charged with theft over $5,000, two counts of possession of property obtained by crime and conspiracy to commit an indictable offense.
Chaudhary is one of the final suspects to be captured in the wide-ranging probe – dubbed “Project 24 Carat” — stemming from the theft of 6,600 gold bars worth nearly $15 million.
Peel investigators believe that Chaudhary was responsible for helping to move the gold after it was stolen. The precious metal has not been recovered and is thought to have been melted and moved to various buyers.
The theft is believed to have been an inside job, officials said. Still wanted is a former Air Canada employee thought to have played a critical role in the caper.
One of the suspects was arrested in 2024 in Pennsylvania.
In 2024, police seized $312,000 worth of cash, which they believe is some of the profits suspects made after selling the gold. Police also seized smelting pots, casts and molds, which they believe were used to change the composition of the gold bars, Peel Regional Police Detective Sgt. Mike Mavity said at an April 2024 press conference.
The gold and foreign currency stolen in the heist were ordered from a refinery in Zurich. They had been transported on an Air Canada flight to Toronto.
Shortly after the plane landed on April 17, 2023, the gold and cargo were transported from the plane to a cargo facility, Mavity said.
A suspect driving a five-ton truck arrived at the facility later that evening, providing a fraudulent airway bill to a cargo warehouse attendant and receiving the shipment. The airway bill was a duplicate of one used the previous day to pick up a shipment of seafood, Mavity said.
The container containing the gold and foreign currency was then loaded onto the truck and the suspect drove away. The container was discovered missing later that night after Brink’s Canada employees arrived to pick up the container, Mavity said.
A view of the scene after a crane being used to build a high-speed rail bridge collapsed onto a passenger train killing at least 12 injuring 30 in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand on January 14, 2026 (Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 32 people were killed on Wednesday as a construction crane for a high-speed rail bridge collapsed onto a moving passenger train in Thailand, government officials said.
At least 64 others were injured, the Thai Ministry of Public Health said in a statement. Thirty-one of those who were killed were pronounced dead at the scene, the ministry said, adding that another person died as they were being transferred to a hospital.
The crane crashed onto the train at about 9 a.m. as the train traveled between the Nong Nam Khun and Sikhiu stations, in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima, according to the Office of the Prime Minister.
“Train derailed and caught fire. 30+ passengers injured, many trapped in carriages,” the government said in an initial statement posted on social media. “Multiple rescue teams deployed.”
The train, which had departed from Bangkok, was carrying 195 passengers and staff members, according to the State Railway of Thailand.
“These figures are currently being verified and officially confirmed by the relevant agencies on the ground,” the minister said in Thai in a statement posted to social media.
The health ministry raised that figure again, saying several hours later that at least 22 people had been killed. The ministry in a subsequent update at about 4:30 p.m. said the toll had again climbed, hitting 31. The ministry said two hours later that the death toll at the scene had risen by one, adding that three people were also considered missing.
The bodies of the dead were transferred to Sikhiu Hospital, the ministry said, adding that many of the injured were being treated at several local hospitals. Eleven were still hospitalized as of the 4:30 p.m. update, the ministry said.
The train was listed as the Special Express Train No. 21, which connects Bangkok, the capital, with Ubon Ratchithani, a city in the northeast, according to the railway.
