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Strong Earthquake Injures Seven in Central Japan
A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale struck central Japan early on Tuesday, leaving seven people injured.
"I felt strong shaking and it woke me up.It shook for about 10 seconds," said Makoto Nakamura, an official in Mie prefecture, near the epicentre of the earthquake and about 400 km (248 miles)southwest of Tokyo. There were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake, which struck at 1.43 a.m.(1643 GMT Monday), officials said. Among the seven people injured, one 30-year-old man was slightly hurt when an iron fell on his head, a local government official said.
"But things are back to normal, with no effect on the transport system," the official said. In Gifu prefecture, a 68-year-old man was taken to hospital with a broken foot after he tripped while evacuating from a hotel. The Meteorological Agency said the earthquake was centred about 40 km (24 miles) below the earth"s surface. "We expect aftershocks to be infrequent because the focus of the temblor was pretty deep," an agency official told Kyodo news agency.
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