TOKYO (AP) — A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake shook off the coast of Fukushima in northern Japan on Wednesday evening, triggering a tsunami advisory. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake struck 60 kilometers (36 miles) below the sea. The region is part of northern Japan that was devastated by a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami 11 years ago that also caused nuclear plant meltdowns. Wednesday’s quake came only days after the area marked the 11th anniversary of the disaster in March 2011.

 

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ANDREWS, Texas (AP) — Nine people died in a fiery, head-on collision in West Texas, including six students and a coach from a New Mexico university who were returning home from a golf tournament, authorities said. A pickup truck crossed the center line of a two-lane road in Andrews County and crashed into a vehicle carrying members of the University of the Southwest men’s and women’s golf teams, said Sgt. Steven Blanco of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Six students and a faculty member were killed in the crash along with the driver and a passenger in the pickup truck, Blanco said. Two students were taken by helicopter to a Lubbock hospital in critical condition.

 

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SEOUL (Al- Jazeera)  -North Korea fired an “unknown projectile” on Wednesday which appeared to fail immediately after launch, South Korea’s military said after Japanese media reported a suspected missile launch by the nuclear-armed North. The launch comes after the United States and South Korea warned that North Korea may be preparing to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at full range for the first time since 2017.  The projectile was fired from an airfield outside the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

 

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LONDON (Al-Jazeera) - Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has proposed constitutional reforms to limit the powers of his office, saying the country needed to switch from “superpresidential” rule to a presidential republic with a strong parliament. Tokayev was elected president in 2019 with the backing of his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had resigned after running the oil-rich nation for 30 years, but retained sweeping powers until recently. Nazarbayev gave up his remaining powers as the head of the security council and the leader of the ruling party during and after violent unrest in early January, and his relatives have since lost a number of influential positions in government and state companies.

 

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LIMA (Reuters) - Part of a hill collapsed in northern Peru, burying at least 60 homes, the government said, with harrowing images on social media showing whole apartment buildings being covered by the landslide. “We estimate that between 60 and 80 homes have been affected by the landslide. There are many people trapped,” Manuel Llempen, the governor of the Peruvian region of La Libertad, told news channel Canal N. There were no confirmed deaths as of Tuesday at noon, but rescue squads were on the scene searching for people, according to local media.