TOKYO, June  14 (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a
preliminary magnitude of 7.0 jolted northern Japan on Saturday,
damaging homes and shaking building 300 km (190 miles) to the
south in Tokyo.
 

"I saw some shattered windows and broken roof tiles," a city
hall worker in Miyagi prefecture told public broadcaster NHK.
"There were no collapsed buildings"
 

No tsunami warning was issued after the quake at 8:44 a.m.
(2354 GMT), but NHK reported that bullet trains in the area had
stopped running.
 

The focus of the tremor was 10 km (6 miles) underground in
Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, the Japan Meteorological Agency
said.
 

A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc <9501.T> said two
of the company's nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture,
just south of Miyagi prefecture, were running as usual and there
were no disruptions from the earthquake.
 

The earthquake measured upper 6 on the Japanese intensity
scale, which measures ground motion. It may be impossible to keep
standing in a quake with that reading, the meteorological agency
says.
 

"There was a strong vertical tremor, nothing after that," a
municipal worker told NHK.
 

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most
seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20
percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
 

In October 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 struck
the Niigata region in northern Japan, killing 65 people and
injuring more than 3,000.
 

That was the deadliest quake since a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit
the city of Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,400.