Strong quake rocks northern Japan

A strong earthquake has jolted northern Japan, injuring more than 100 people.

A National Police Agency official said 107 people were injured, 16 seriously. Many were hurt in falls or suffered cuts from broken glass.

Officials warned of possible landslides, and hundreds of homes were without running water, broadcaster NHK said.

The quake, which had a magnitude of 6.8 on Richter scale, was the latest in a series to hit the sparsely populated, mountainous regions of Iwate and Aomori.

The first of these tremors in mid-June killed at least ten people and left as many again missing.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 per cent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The damage caused by the quake was relatively minor in because its focus was more than 62 miles underground, a seismologist said.

Hundreds of people were trapped on overnight trains that were halted by the quake, but were later able to get out safely, rail operator JR East said.

Some stretches of motorway were briefly closed to traffic in the region, but they were later reopened, said a spokesman for the operators. Some smaller roads remained blocked by landslides.

In October 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 struck the Niigata region in northern Japan, killing 65 people and injuring more than 3,000.

That was the deadliest quake since a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit the city of Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,400.

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