Quake hits northern Japan, no casualities

Tokyo, Feb 17: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 hit Japan's northern island of Hokkaido today, the Meteorological Agency said.

There were no reports of damage or casualties.

The agency said the earthquake, which struck southeastern Hokkaido, about 900 km (560 miles) north of Tokyo, at 0903 hrs (0533 IST) today, would not trigger a tsunami.

The area rocked by the tremor is sparsely populated and dotted with farming and fishing towns facing the Pacific Ocean.

''There were shakes from side to side for about 20 to 30 seconds,'' said Masafumi Shishihara, an official in Uraho, the area hit hardest by the quake.

''But nothing fell off from the shelves and the tremor itself was not so big.'' Japan sits at the junction of at least three tectonic plates, immense slabs of the earth's crust whose gradual movements are thought to cause earthquakes, making it one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions.

Reuters