Wednesday, April 20 2005 18:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Tokyo: A strong earthquake struck southern Japan today (Apr 20, 2005), injuring at least 58 people, shattering windows and knocking down houses already damaged by a powerful tremor that hit the same area last month. There was no threat of tsunami.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.8, hit at 6:11 AO (01: 41 IST today) and was centered 14 kilometers below the seabed in the ocean just west of Fukuoka city on Kyushu island, the Central Meteorological Agency reported.

The 58 people hurt, two of them seriously, suffered broken bones and other injuries, but none of them were life threatening, said Masahiko Esaki, a spokesman for Fukuoka Prefecture (State).

Most of the injuries were from objects falling from shelves or from stepping onto broken glass.

The quake damaged some 279 buildings and triggered several landslides in the damage zone, including on the island of Genkai, where several homes already damaged in a powerful March 20 quake were knocked down in today's temblor.A total of 211 people were evacuated from their homes after the quake, Esaki said.

Officials were still assessing the extent of the damage from the temblor, which was followed by several weaker jolts, said Fukuoka prefecture (State) spokesman Yoshihiro Nakamura. The quake shook large areas of Kyushu, and was most strongly felt in Fukuoka city, 900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.