Quake jolts Japanese island

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 jolted the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido late yesterday, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no reports of damage or injuries in the sparsely populated area. The tremor occured...

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 jolted the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido late yesterday, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no reports of damage or injuries in the sparsely populated area.

The tremor occured around 11.09 p.m. (1409 GMT) and its focus was about 50 km below the seabed off the city of Kushiro in southeastern Hokkaido, about 890 km northwest of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

"At first we felt a vertical shaking... the shaking lasted about 30 seconds. It did not last very long," Yoshinobu Irie, an official at the Kushiro city office, told public broadcaster NHK.

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