The 7.6 magnitude quake hit the Noto Peninsula, close to the town of Anamizu.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has urged people in coastal areas to evacuate immediately and to move to higher ground as further earthquakes are expected in the coming hours.

So these pictures that we can show you right now are the latest ones that have been coming in to us on social media.

So these are not independently verified by the BBC.

These are on social media just in the last hour or so.

Initial reports suggesting a tsunami of 1.2 meters high has already hit the coast of Wajima City with warnings that the waves could reach up to 5 meters.

Now, more than 36,000 homes have lost power in the last couple of hours.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary has confirmed there are so far no irregularities at any nuclear power plants, but the authorities are continuing to monitor for any possible damage.

Now, the very latest information that we have is that a news conference with Japan's Weather Agency is expected to be broadcast in the next hour.

And I think we can take you to live images being run by Japan's state broadcaster right at the moment.

These are the live images from NHK, and they have been warning for the last hour of various levels of tsunami.

You can see on the screen at the moment. They are warning of a height of 3 meters and 1 meter.

But we know in other parts of Japan, it has been up to 5 meters.

But the the main thing that you can see is that in the top right of your screen, those words "evacuate immediately," that's for the coastal areas that you can see highlighted on the map there.