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An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 hit the southern Japanese island of Kyushu on Tuesday, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, Reuters reports.

The quake was centered just offshore from the city of Kagoshima, NHK public television said.

There were no irregularities at the nearby Sendai nuclear plant, where two reactors are in operation, Kyushu Electric Power Co said.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake's epicentre was 14km southwest of Tarumizu at a depth of 16.7km, as reported by Channel NewsAsia.

Japan is one of the world's most seismically active areas, accounting for about a fifth of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami. Those events triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.