TOKYO
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.5 shook the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo on Saturday night but no tsunami warning was given.
Kyodo news agency reported that the tremor hit the Kanto region around 1,000 kilometers south of the capital.
The country's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Japan's Meteorological Agency said that the quake occurred at 8:24 p.m. (GMT1224) off the Ogasawara island chain -- also known as the The Bonin Islands -- in the Pacific.
It registered upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Ogasawara and in the eastern part of Kanagawa Prefecture, west of Tokyo.
Kyodo reported that Tokyo's Haneda airport was temporary closed, some rail services - including the Shinkansen bullet trains - were also temporarily halted, and 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.
