The quake's toll stood at two dead and 174 injured. A total of 7,122 buildings in southwestern Japan sustained some damage, the Home Affairs Ministry in Tokyo said. The quake littered streets with roof tiles and window shards. About 120 people living in and around the bustling city of Hiroshima had to leave damaged homes, said Masayoshi Yatsu, a spokesman for the government's disaster prevention office. About 10,000 homes remained without water Sunday.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.
It straddles three tectonic plates, the huge slabs of land that cover the surface of the Earth. Saturday's quake was centered off the coast of Japan and relatively deep under the sea, some 40 miles below ground, which may have softened its impact. In October, a magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck a largely rural area in Tottori state, northwest of Hiroshima. No one was killed but at least 120 people were injured and some 2,000 homes damaged. Some 6,000 people died when an earthquake devastated the western Japan port city of Kobe in 1995.