Strong quake jolts northern Japan, no tsunami by Michaela Vargova

TOKYO, 24th July - A strong earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted northern Japan early on Thursday. The Japan Meteorological Agency said there was no threat of a tsunami from the quake, because the focus of the quake lied 120 km (75 miles) below the surface of the earth in a mountainous, sparsely populated region. Fortunately, only several people have been injured. Japanese media said military planes were flying over the area to try to assess the extent of damage and that local authorities had requested troops to be sent to the area to help. It is estimated at least 10,000 homes have been cut off the electric power. Also some parts of highways had been closed to traffic and some rail lines were stopped after the quake in the region, which is, as mentioned sooner, mountainous and sparsely populated part of Japan. Fortunately, neighter any of the nuclear plants that are situatd further south had not been affected.
In general, earthquakes like that last one are quite common in Japan. The country is considered to be one of the world's most seismically active areas, which is determinated its geographical location on a seismicaly very active belt called The fire circle. So no surprise the country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
Thursday's quake follows a string of earthquakes that hit the same region, the first of which in mid-June killed at least 10 people and left as many again missing. It is estimated during the last earthquake about 18 to 55 people have been injured.

by Michaela Vargova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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