Japan assesses damage from 7.5 magnitude quake that injured 34

TOKYO (AP) — Japan was assessing damage Tuesday and cautioning people of potential aftershocks after a late-night 7.5 magnitude earthquake caused injuries, light damage and a tsunami in Pacific coastal communities.

At least 34 people were injured, one seriously, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. Most of them were hit by falling objects, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters an emergency task force was formed to urgently assess damage. “We are putting people’s lives first and doing everything we can,” she said.

At a parliamentary session Tuesday, Takaichi pledged the government would continue its utmost effort and reminded people they have to protect their own lives.

The 7.5 magnitude quake struck around 11:15 p.m. in the Pacific Ocean, around 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Japan’s main Honshu island. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at 7.6 magnitude and said it occurred 44 kilometers (27 miles) below the surface.

A tsunami of up to 70 centimeters (2 feet, 4 inches) was measured in Kuji port in Iwate prefecture, just south of Aomori, and waves up to 50 centimeters struck other communities in the region, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. NHK reported the waves damaged some oyster rafts.

The agency lifted all tsunami advisories by 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said about 800 homes were without electricity and Shinkansen bullet trains and some local lines were suspended in parts of the region in the early hours of Tuesday. East Japan Railway said bullet trains resumed operation in the region later Tuesday.

Power was mostly restored by Tuesday morning, according to the Tohoku Electric Power Co.

About 480 residents sheltered at Hachinohe Air Base and 18 defense helicopters were mobilized for a damage assessment, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said.

About 200 passengers were stranded for the night at New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, NHK reported. Part of a domestic terminal building was unusable Tuesday after parts of its ceiling cracked and fell to the floor, according to the airport operator.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said about 450 liters (118 gallons) of water spilled from a spent fuel cooling area at the Rokkasho fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori, but that its water level remained within the normal range and there was no safety concern. No abnormalities were found at other nuclear power plants and spent fuel storage facilities, the NRA said.

JMA cautioned about possible aftershocks in the coming days. It said there is a slight increase in risk of a magnitude 8-level quake and possible tsunami occurring along Japan's northeastern coast from Chiba, just east of Tokyo, to Hokkaido. The agency urged residents in 182 municipalities in the area to monitor their emergency preparedness in the coming week, reminding them that the caution is not a prediction of a big one.

Monday's quake occurred just north of the coastal region where the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011 killed nearly 20,000 people and destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

“You need to prepare, assuming that a disaster like that could happen again," JMA official Satoshi Harada said.

Smaller aftershocks were continuing Tuesday. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 6.6 and later a 5.1 quake in the hours after the initial temblor.

People cover the broken glasses with a blue sheet at a beauty salon in Hachinohe, Aomori prefecture, northern Japan Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, following a powerful earthquake on late Monday. (Kazuki Kozaki/Kyodo News via AP)

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks to reporters at the prime minister's office in Tokyo after a strong earthquake struck northeastern Japan. (Kyodo News via AP)

Evacuees get ready to return home as a tsunami advosory has been lifted in Hidaka town, northern Japan Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, following a powerful earthquake on late Monday. (Kyodo News via AP)

Papers are scattered on the floor at an office in Hakodate, Hokkaido, northern Japan Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, following a powerful earthquake on late Monday. (Kyodo News via AP)

A man clears the debris from a powerful earthquake at a commercial facility in Hachinohe, Aomori prefecture, northern Japan Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Ren Onuma/Kyodo News via AP)

This aerial photo shows a vehicle sitting on a damaged road in Tohoku town, Aomori prefecture, northern Japan Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, following a powerful earthquake on late Monday. (Kyodo News via AP)

As communities across the country on Monday hosted parades, panels and service projects for the 40th federal observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the political climate for some is more fraught with tensions than festive with reflection on the slain Black American civil rights icon's legacy.

In the year since Donald Trump's second inauguration fell on King Day, the Republican president has adopted a scorched earth stance against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and targeted mostly Black-led cities for federal law enforcement operations, among other policies that many King admirers have criticized.

One year ago, Trump's executive orders, “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” and “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” accelerated a rollback of civil rights and racial justice initiatives in federal agencies, corporations and universities. Last month, the National Park Service announced it will no longer offer free admission to parks on King Day and Juneteenth, but instead on Flag Day and Trump's birthday.

The fatal shooting this month of an unarmed Minneapolis woman in her car by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sent there to target the city's Somali immigrant population, as well as Trump recently decrying civil rights as discrimination against white people, have only intensified fears of a regression from the social progress King and many others advocated for.

Still, the concerns have not chilled many King holiday events planned this year. Some conservative admirers of King say the holiday should be a reminder of the civil rights icon's plea that all people be judged by their character and not their skin color. Some Black advocacy groups, however, are vowing a day of resistance and rallies nationwide.

Urgent calls to unite against injustice were interspersed with energetic gospel at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King preached. A sense that civil and human rights are at stake infused the comments by many speakers there Monday.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat and Ebenezer's senior pastor, invoked a story about King fighting for the Voting Rights Act after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. He urged the crowd to keep pushing against Trump’s policies, sweeping immigration enforcement and what he described as attempts from the “Trump-Vance regime” to sow division.

“They are trying to weaponize despair and convince us that we are at war with one another,” Warnock said.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump said he felt the Civil Rights Movement and the reforms it helped usher in were harmful to white people, who “were very badly treated.” Politicians and advocates say Trump's comments are what are harmful, because they dismiss the hard work of King and others that helped not just Black Americans but other groups, including women and the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think the Civil Rights Movement was one of the things that made our country so unique, that we haven’t always been perfect, but we’ve always strived to be this more perfect union, and that’s what I think the Civil Rights Movement represents,” Gov. Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor and only the nation’s third elected Black governor, said this week in an interview with The Associated Press.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, one of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalitions, said the Trump administration's priorities make clear it is actively trying to erase the movement.

“From health care access and affordable housing to good paying jobs and union representation," Wiley said, “things Dr. King made part of his clarion call for a beloved community are still at stake and is even more so because (the administration) has dismantled the very terms of government and the norms of our culture.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

In Washington Monday, hundreds of people marched along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, braving cold weather to honor the civil rights leader. The parade began decades ago as part of the effort to establish a national holiday in King’s honor.

Sam Ford, a retired broadcaster and member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade Committee, helped bring the parade back in 2012.

“We got to continue to do this because not just of Dr. King, but of what he stood for," Ford said. “The struggle continues.”

Parade participant Harold Hunter echoed that sentiment.

“It’s not just a white thing or Black thing. This is a people thing,” he said.

The conservative Heritage Foundation think tank encouraged the holiday’s focus to stay solely on King himself. Brenda Hafera, a foundation research fellow, urged people to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta or reread his “I have a dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington nearly 63 years ago.

Using the holiday as a platform to rally and speak about “anti-racism” and “critical race theory” actually rejects King’s ambition for the country, Hafera argued.

“I think efforts should be conducted in the spirit of what Martin Luther King actually believed and what he preached. And his vision was a colorblind society, right,” Hafera said. “He says very famously in his speech, don’t judge by the color of your skin, but the content of your character.”

The NAACP, the nation's oldest civil right organization which had a myriad MLK Day events planned for Monday, asserted that the heightened fears among communities of color and in immigrant communities mean King Day observances must take a different tone. People will have to put their safety first, even if their government isn't, said Wisdom Cole, NAACP senior national director of advocacy.

“As folks are using their constitutional right to protest and to speak out and stand up for what they believe in, we are being faced with violence. We are faced with increased police and state violence inflicted by the government,” Cole said.

The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of organizations affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, had planned its events under the banner “Reclaim MLK Day of Action.” Organizers planned demonstrations in Atlanta; Chicago; and Oakland, California, among other cities, over the weekend and Monday.

“This year it is more important than ever to reclaim MLK’s radical legacy, letting his wisdom and fierce commitment to freedom move us into the action necessary to take care of one another, fight back, and free ourselves from this fascist regime,” Devonte Jackson, a national organizing director for the coalition, said in a statement.

For the first time in its 60-year history, Indiana University in Indianapolis canceled its annual Martin Luther King dinner. Over the years, the event drew notable guest speakers including Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, and activist Angela Davis.

The reasoning was “budget constraints,” according to a social media post by the school's Black Student Union. However, the group said it was worried this was “connected to broader political pressures.” A few students responded by organizing smaller community dinners or “eat-ins” to fill the void, WTHR-TV in Indianapolis reported.

Meanwhile, the St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Westbrook, Maine, canceled a MLK Day service due to “unforeseen circumstances,” according to the parish website. But a member of the church's “social justice and peace committee” told NewsCenterMaine.com that the pastor was concerned about people's safety amid rumors of ICE agents being in the area.

Overall, there have been few reports of King Day events being majorly scaled down or canceled altogether.

In Memphis, Tennessee, the National Civil Rights Museum was going about its annual King Day celebration as normal. The museum is located on the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where King was shot on April 4, 1968. The museum offered free admission on the holiday, an annual tradition.

“This milestone year is not only about looking back at what Dr. King stood for, but also recognizing the people who continue to make his ideals real today,” museum President Russell Wigginton said.

Tang reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Matt Brown in Washington; Adrian Sanz in Memphis, Tennessee; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. seen at Contra Costa College ahead of his lecture in San Pablo, Calif. on Feb. 14, 1964. (Pete Breinig/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

FILE - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech in Selma, Ala., Feb. 12, 1965. (AP Photo/Horace Cort, file)

FILE - The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial during the 9th Annual Wreath Laying and Day of Reflection and Reconciliation, in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

FILE - A visitor pauses as she visits the memorial "Landmark for Peace" commemorating the site where Robert Kennedy delivered his immortal words on the night of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination in Indianapolis, Wednesday, April 4, 2018. The park where Kennedy called for peace and unity just hours after the assassination of King is being designated a National Historic Site. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

FILE - A crowd marches across the Lefty O'Doul Bridge during the MLK Day March in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Dan Hernandez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)

FILE - A marcher holds up a sign at a march and rally at the South Carolina Statehouse to honor Martin Luther King Jr. on his holiday on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, File)