TOKYO
Two earthquakes near remote Japanese islands have shaken most of the country, but left just 10 people injured, state media reported Sunday.
Kyodo news agency reported that a magnitude-6.4 quake had struck off Japan's Izu islands north of the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific early in the morning, while the Ogasawaras -- also known as The Bonin Islands -- were themselves struck by a magnitude 7.8 quake Saturday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Saturday's quake was centred 874 kilometers from the Japanese capital, Tokyo, at a depth of more than 660 kilometers.
It struck at 8.30 p.m. (GMT1230). Buildings in Tokyo were reported to have swayed for almost a minute as the tremor built in intensity.
Neither quake triggered a tsunami, although the Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported more than 10 people were injured.
Kyodo reported residents of the village of Ogasawara near the epicenter of the Saturday night temblor as saying that books had fallen from shelves on the floor and phones had become unhooked as the quake jolted the village.
Tokyo's Haneda airport was temporary closed, some rail services -- including the Shinkansen bullet trains -- were temporarily halted, but no irregularities were reported at nuclear power plants in Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures.
Japan is one of the world’s most seismically active areas. It accounts for around 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
The country’s coastal areas of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures were devastated in the wake of a March 2011 quake. An ensuing massive tsunami killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear disaster.
