No major injuries from magnitude-5.8 quake in Japan

Michael Winter, USA TODAY | USATODAY

A moderately strong earthquake jolted southwestern Japan near Kobe around dawn Saturday.

Several minor injuries were reported but no major damage, local authorities said. No tsunami alert was issued.

No damage was reported to the country's only operating nuclear power plant or to others that were taken offline after the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.

The Saturday quake measured magnitude-5.8 and struck at 5:33 a.m. local time about 6 miles from Sumoto, on Awaji Island in the Seto Inland Sea between the the islands of Honshu and Shikoku, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. Kobe and Osaka lie about 35 miles to the northeast, and Tokyo is about 300 miles away.

The quake hit at a depth of 3.3 miles. The USGS put the preliminary magnitude at 6.3, revised it to 6 and then revised it down again.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said immediately afterward the quake might cause "slight sea-level changes in coastal regions." The agency has more details.

In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake killed more than 6,400 people in Kobe.