Strong quake jolts northern Japan, felt in Tokyo

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: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) 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. (Writing by Hugh Lawson; Editing by Rodney Joyce)