Magnitude 7.2 Quake off Eastern Japan

A large earthquake struck beneath the Pacific sea floor Tuesday morning at 7:39 local time. There is NO tsunami expected beyond a small one on the northeast coast of Honshu island. This event is in the Pacific plate in the bending zone before subduction, a normal-faulting event related to flexure of the lithosphere rather than the more dangerous thrust faulting typical of subduction zones. I can tell this from the focal mechanism, as reported on the USGS special page for this event. There was only weak shaking reported onshore.