Japan | 12 hurt in quake as life returns to normal

Twelve people suffered minor injuries and businesses returned to normal yesterday after a powerful earthquake near remote Japanese islands shook most of the country the previous night, but it was well beneath the earth’s surface and did not trigger a tsunami. The magnitude-7.8 quake struck off the Ogasawara islands Saturday night at a depth of 678 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was followed by a magnitude-6.4 quake yesterday morning off Japan’s Izu islands, which are north of the Ogasawaras. The latest quake struck at a depth of 13 kilometers with the epicenter 630 kilometers southeast of Tokyo. It was not strong enough to generate a tsunami warning or close enough to the islands to cause any significant damage or injuries, said John Bellini, a USGS geophysicist in Golden, Colorado. He said it is considered a separate seismic event and not an aftershock from Saturday’s quake. Saturday night’s temblor was powerful enough to rattle most of Japan, from the southern islands of Okinawa to Hokkaido in the north. It caused buildings to sway in Tokyo — about 1,000 kilometers north of the Ogasawara islands — and temporarily disrupted some train services in the city. About 400 houses in Saitama prefecture, just north of the capital, were without power, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. AP