This 6.4M quake hit 570 miles west of Tokyo, off the coast of the island of Kyushu, Japan at 01:53AM (GMT) or 10:53 AM local time. Some news reports rated the quake as a Magnitude 7, which would have been much more powerful than the 6.4 Magnitude reported by the USGS. Many buildings were damaged, utilities were cut off, 1 person was killed and another 250 were injured. Tall buildings swayed in Fukuoka. Numerous aftershocks have followed the main quake. Intial fears that the quake would generate a tsunami proved unfounded.
The damage from this quake was very much less than the Iranian quake of similar size just a month before. Hundreds of people died in that quake. Both areas are subject to frequent strong earthquakes, but Japan has done a much better job of preparing for the inevitable with strong earthquake resistant building codes. Even so, a large earthquake in an urban area can cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars worth of damage, as demonstrated in Kobe.
Japan is subject to frequent earthquakes due to the interactions of the Pacific, Phillipines, North American and Eurasian Plates in this area of the world.
(See the Plate Tectonics page for more information on these processes.) The US Geological Survey (USGS) is an invaluable resource in understanding and tracking earthquakes.
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