Four people were dead in Japan on Thursday and more than 100 were injured after a strong night quake shook much of the east coast and triggered a tsunami warning, authorities said.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake off the Fukushima coast derailed a bullet train, opened fire on the highway and dropped shop boards.

A tsunami warning against waves up to one meter (three feet) in parts of northeastern Japan was lifted on Thursday after authorities raised the water level by as much as 30 centimeters, which is more than usual in some areas.

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Several minor concussions shook the region until Thursday morning, shaking nerves, just days after Japan commemorated the 11th anniversary of a strong earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

The damage appears to be minimal, in a country with heavy building regulations to protect it from frequent earthquakes, and officials say there are no abnormalities in nuclear power plants.

Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said four deaths had been reported, though investigations were still under way into whether they were a direct result of the quake.

Another 107 people were injured, he added.

"We've received reports that there are no data irregularities in the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear plants and the Onagawa nuclear plant," Matsuno said, referring to the facility crippled in 2011 and two others in the region.

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TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, said its facility was operating normally on Thursday.

The quake struck 60 kilometers (37 miles) shortly after 11:30 p.m. It was preceded by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in the same area, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said. "We had two big earthquakes. The first was very big and it was shaking badly. I was ready to evacuate, then the second, bigger one, hit," a town councilor in Soma, Fukushima, told AFP.

Power being restored

In Shiroishi, supermarket employees removed damage, including products that fell from planks and a partially recessed ceiling.

"This is really ironic. Exactly a year ago, we also had a similar-scale earthquake," store employee Yoshinari Kiwaki told AFP.

"When we felt the tremor last night, we already knew what we would have to work on here in the morning," the 62-year-old added, saying it would take around a month to get the store back in business.

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The tremors also hit the capital, temporarily leaving parts of Tokyo and other areas in the dark.

Immediately after the earthquake, nearly two million households in Tokyo and elsewhere were affected, but electricity supply was slowly restored during the night. About 30,000 households were left without electricity on Thursday morning, and another 4,300 were without water.

Some damage has been reported elsewhere, including the collapse of a stone wall in the Aoba Castle area of ​​Sendai and a Shinkansen bullet train derailed north of Fukushima.

No one was injured in the derailment, but 75 passengers and three crew members on board were detained four hours before escaping from the train.

Japan lies in the "Circle of Fire" of the Pacific Ocean, an arc of intense seismic activity that has swept through Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin.

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The country is regularly hit by earthquakes, but remains troubled by the memory of the 2011 disaster, which killed or missing 18,500 people, mostly from the tsunami.

The affected power plant in Fukushima has been extensively decontaminated and no-go zones now make up only 2.4 percent of the region, compared to 12 percent, although the population in many cities remains crowded.