Bangla2000 | International News - Japan: lately ‘the land of setting sun’

Residents watch Mount Oyama, background, which shooted up ash Saturday , in the island of Miyakejima, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) south of Tokyo, Sunday, July 9, 2000. Mount Oyama coughed up a large boulders and a clould of yellowish ash. No injuries were reported. Hours after the volcanic eruption, the magnitude 6.0 quake jolted a string of islands off Tokyo early Sunday near Miyakejima.(AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

MIYAKEJIMA, Japan (AP) - Hours after a volcanic eruption, a strong earthquake jolted a string of islands off Tokyo Sunday, cracking roads, bursting a water pipe and triggering landslides that damaged homes.

The magnitude 6.0 quake struck in the early hours of Sunday in the Izu island chain, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) south of Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said.

The tremor came amid thousands of aftershocks following a magnitude 6.4 tremor on July 1 that killed a motorist who was buried under fallen rocks and demolished a shrine and several homes.

While Sunday's pre-dawn quake damaged buildings on the hardest-hit island of Kozushima, no injuries were reported, said a local official, who only gave his surname Tsuchiya.

Sunday's tremor also triggered landslides on the nearby island of Niijima, said local official Torayoshi Kino.

The earthquake came hours after Mount Oyama on Miyakejima, just south of Kozushima, coughed up a large boulders and a cloud of yellowish ash.

The eruption deepended the crater on the mountain's summit when a circular area about 700 meters (yards) wide caved in, Meteorological Agency official Kazuo Arakachi said.

Though the island continued to be rocked by tremors, no lava was flowing from the 806-meter (2,686-foot) mountain, and officials said they did not plan to issue an evacuation order.

No injuries were reported from the earthquake or volcanic eruption on Miyakejima, said island official Koki Yamamoto.


	The crater appears on the volcanic ash-covered summit of Mount Oyama on Miyakejima island, 190 kilometers (120 miles) south of Tokyo, Sunday, July 9, 2000. The volcano erupted Saturday with a cloud of yellowish ash after a series of earthquakes that began last month. No injuries were reported from the eruption on the island off Tokyo. (AP Photo/Kyodo)

Japan's Coast Guard said it dispatched a patrol ship to Miyakejima for use if an evacuation became necessary. The small island is home to some 4,000 people.

Miyakejima and neighboring islands have been rattled by over 34,000 quakes in recent weeks, including about 3,500 strong enough to be felt by humans.

Some 2,000 people on Miyakejima were evacuated last month, but the order was lifted after experts said magma was flowing away from the island under the seabed, lessening the chance of the volcano spewing lava onto populated areas.

The volcano on the small island has erupted several times in the last 60 years, including in 1983, but the blasts usually came quickly and were over in a couple of days.

No one was killed or injured in the last eruption because residents were evacuated in time. Eleven people died, and 20 were injured in a 1940 eruption.