article_snippet.sent: General view of Ginowan city, north-east of the capital of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan ©Kazuhiro Nogi (AFP/File) '
article_snippet.sent: Map locating the epicenter of a 6.6-magnitude quake that hit the southwest edge of Japan's Okinawa province, near the coast of Taiwan on April 20, 2015 .
article_snippet.sent: The US Geological Survey said the 6.6 magnitude quake, which Japanese authorities had originally put at 6.8, struck 71 kilometres (44 miles) east of Hualian, Taiwan at 0143 GMT.
article_snippet.sent: Japan sits at the confluence of four of the earth's tectonic plates and registers more than 20 percent of the planet's most powerful earthquakes every year.
article_snippet.sent: Strict building codes and a long familiarity with the dangers mean that quakes that might cause devastation in other parts of the world are frequently uneventful in Japan.
article_snippet.sent: However, occasional disasters prove exceptionally deadly, and more than 18,000 people were killed by a huge tsunami that smashed into the northeast coast in 2011 after a huge 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
highlights_snippet.sent: A very shallow quake hit Yonaguni in the southwest, near Taiwan .
  