Strong quake shakes Japan's Fukushima

TOKYO: A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake shook northeast Japan's Fukushima prefecture, home to a crippled nuclear power plant, early Sunday, but there was no risk of tsunami, seismologists said.

Local police said they had no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from the tremor which hit at 3:54am (1854 GMT Saturday), although they were still collecting information.

The quake was centred around 100 kilometres (60 miles) south-southeast of Fukushima city, Japan Meteorological Agency and the US Geological Survey said, at a depth of about 40 kilometres.

Public broadcaster NHK said Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant crippled by a massive 9.0 quake and ensuing tsunami on March 11, was checking whether the latest quake dealt any new damage to the plant.

The devastating March disaster left about 22,000 people dead or missing and triggered an atomic crisis at the nuclear plant.

Japan, located at the junction of four tectonic plates, experiences 20 percent of the strongest quakes recorded on Earth each year.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011