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TOKYO — A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted northern Japan early on Thursday, but there was no threat of a tsunami from the quake, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Public broadcaster NHK said one building was on fire in the area after the quake, and the broadcaster's fixed cameras showed fire engines driving through the streets towards the scene of the blaze. There were no more details immediately available about the extent of the fire.
The focus of the tremor was 120 kilometres below the surface of the earth in Iwate prefecture.
National broadcaster NHK said some parts of highways had been closed to traffic and some rail lines were stopped after the quake in the region, which is a mountainous and sparsely populated part of Japan.
"There's no place to walk... Ceramics are broken and it's a mess... There was no place to run to, and I didn't know what to do," Tomio Kudo, who runs a food store in Iwate prefecture, told NHK after the quake.
The governor of Iwate prefecture has requested military help following the quake, broadcaster TBS reported.
NHK said several people had been lightly injured, including those who cut their feet on glass and one person who had fallen after the quake.
An Iwate prefecture official said some city halls had reported that that some panes of glass had broken in their buildings.
Tohoku Electric said its nuclear facilities in the area were operating normally after the quake, except for one unit that was already off-line for maintenance work.
Tokyo Electric said its nuclear plants further south had not been affected.
Nippon Oil said its 145,000 barrels per day Sendai refinery was operating normally after quake.
Japan's Jiji news reported that the government had set up an emergency task force at the prime minister's residence following the quake.
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.
Thursday's quake follows a string of earthquakes in the same region, the first of which in mid-June killed at least 10 people and left as many again missing.
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.
