An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 rattled southwestern and western Japan early Saturday, resulting in at least four injuries amid strong shaking although no tsunami waves were triggered, the weather agency and local authorities said.
The focus of the quake under the Pacific Ocean was within a zone off JapanтАЩs coast where an earthquake causing a massive tsunami is predicted to occur in the future. The Meteorological Agency said it will study whether the latest quake is connected in any way with the one feared to be coming.
The quake occurred at around 1:08 a.m., logging an upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Miyazaki and Oita prefectures on the countryтАЩs southwestern main island of Kyushu, the weather agency said.
At an intensity of upper 5, many people find it hard to move and walking is difficult without holding on to something stable.
The agency later revised the magnitude of the quake upward to 6.6 from the initial estimate of 6.4. It also warned of the possibility of another quake causing a similar level of shaking in the hard-hit areas within the next week.
After the strong quake, several smaller-scale temblors occurred sporadically in the area.
According to a local fire department, a man in his 40s was injured in a fall at his house in Hyuga, Miyazaki Prefecture.
In Oita Prefecture, three people were injured slightly in Saiki. The City Hall suffered a power outage, while water pipe ruptures were reported at several sites in Oita after the temblor.
There were no abnormalities in the operation of nuclear power plants in the Kyushu region, Kyushu Electric Power Co. said.
Following the quake, the government set up a liaison office at the Prime MinisterтАЩs Office to gather information and assess the damage.
The quake was also felt across a wide area of western Japan as well as part of central Japan.
In the quake-prone country, a mammoth temblor originating in the Nankai Trough could become one of the deadliest on record if it occurs. The central government estimates that up to some 320,000 people could die in the event of a trench-type earthquake along the trough stretching from off western to central Japan, mostly due to a catastrophic tsunami.
In the Nankai Trough, a magnitude-8 class quake has occurred at certain intervals for centuries, with the governmentтАЩs Earthquake Research Committee forecasting a 90% likelihood that a quake with a magnitude of 8.0 to 9.0 will occur there within the next 40 years.
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