TOKYO -- A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off northern Japan late Monday, injuring more than 20 people and triggering a tsunami of up to 28 inches in Pacific coast communities, officials said.

The Japanese government was still assessing damages from the tsunami and late-evening quake, which struck at about 11:15 p.m. in the Pacific Ocean around 50 miles off the coast of Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Japan's main Honshu island.

"I've never experienced such a big shaking," convenience store owner Nobuo Yamada told the public broadcaster NHK in the Aomori prefecture town of Hachinohe, adding that "luckily" power lines were still operating in his area.

A tsunami of almost 28 inches was measured in Kuji port in Iwate prefecture, just south of Aomori, and tsunami levels of

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