6.6 earthquake hits Japan's Hokkaido island

A powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.7 on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido caused a landslide that engulfed houses early on Thursday, injuring and trapping a number of people and cutting power in several areas.

A landslide along a long ridge in the rural town of Atsumi could be seen in aerial footage from public broadcaster NHK . Some 10 people had been taken to hospital with injuries , it said.

There were widespread power outages and blocked roads, NHK said, but no early reports of deaths.

The quake, which struck at 3:08 a.m. (1808 GMT on Wednesday) posed no tsunami risk , the Japan Meteorological Agency ( JMA ) said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it struck some 68 km (42 miles) southeast of Sapporo , Hokkaido’s main city.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

, arriving at his office before 6 a.m., told reporters his government had set up a command center to coordinate relief and rescue. His voice sounding haggard, Abe said saving lives was his government’s top priority.

The Tomari Nuclear Power Station , shut since shortly after a massive 2011 earthquake, reported no irregularities and its fuel rods were cooling safely in a pool, operator Hokkaido Electric Power (9509.T) Co told NHK.

A series of smaller shocks , including one with a magnitude of 5.4, followed the initial temblor, the Meteorological Agency said. Agency official Toshiyuki Matsumori , at an early morning news conference, warned residents to take precautions for potential major aftershocks in coming days.

Japan

, situated on the “ Ring of Fire ” arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin , accounts for about 20% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

On March 11, 2011 , a 9.0 magnitude earthquake , the most powerful ever recorded in Japan , struck under the ocean off the coast of the northern city of Sendai . The quake set off a series of massive tsunami that devastated a wide swathe of the Pacific coastline and killed nearly 20,000 .

The tsunami also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant , leading to a series of explosions and meltdowns in the world’s worst nuclear disaster for 25 years.

Saturday marked the 95th anniversary of the Great Kanto earthquake , which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. Seismologists have said another such quake could strike the city at any time.

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