Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant

The release of wastewater from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant was temporarily suspended on Friday following an earthquake, its operator said.

A 5.8-magnitude jolt struck off the coast of the northeastern Fukushima region, home to the plant wrecked by a tsunami in 2011, at 00:14 am Friday (1514 GMT Thursday), the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Nov. 22, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Reuters reported.