TOKYO
(Reuters) - Aftershocks jolted western Japan on Saturday as residents
of the region counted the toll of damage -- and their blessings
-- from a strong earthquake a day earlier which injured more than
100 people but caused no deaths.
Police said
106 people were injured and some 1,700 buildings were damaged
-- including 70 totally or partly destroyed -- when the earthquake,
measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, struck around 1:30 p.m. on
Friday.
Its epicenter
was some six miles underground in largely rural western Tottori
prefecture, officials said.
It was the
strongest earthquake since January 17, 1995, when a devastating
7.2 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 6,500 people and destroyed
hundreds of thousands of homes in the western port city of Kobe.
More than
2,500 people spent the night in evacuation centers in Tottori
Prefecture and another 230 in nearby Shimane Prefecture after
warnings that strong aftershocks could continue.
Helicopters
were being sent to remote rural areas to survey the damage, officials
added.
Saturday classes
were canceled at 117 schools in the three prefectures of Tottori,
Shimane and Okayama, where about 2,600 households were left without
water, public broadcaster NHK said.
Rural areas
were among the hardest hit by the tremor, although the impact
could even be felt in parts of Tokyo, about 360 miles east of
the worst-hit areas.
Assessment,
Relief
A government
mission was expected to visit the region later in the day to discuss
relief measures with local authorities, as officials continued
to assess the damage to water mains and transport routes from
quake-induced landslides.
Experts attributed
the relatively limited scale of the damage in part to the fact
that the epicenter was far from heavily populated areas.
Shinkansen
bullet train services, including those between Tokyo and the western
metropolis of Osaka, were halted temporarily on Friday but were
operating normally by Saturday.
But the airport
at Yonago in Tottori Prefecture remained closed for runway repairs.
An electric
power industry official said no impact was reported on nuclear
power plants in the area because they were shut for maintenance.
The tremor
shook the Suzuka race track, where the penultimate Formula One
race of the season takes place on Sunday. Journalists at the circuit's
media center headed for the exits as the building swayed.
No tidal wave
warnings were issued.
Companies
with factories in the region said they had suffered no major damage,
though some halted operations for inspection.
Japan is one
of the world's most earthquake-prone regions, sitting atop the
juncture of three tectonic plates, or pieces of the earth's crust.
Tens of thousands of quakes have jolted the Izu island chain south
of Tokyo in recent months.
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