A strong earthquake shut down a nuclear reactor in central Japan this morning.
The quake, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, occurred 20km underground in Niigata prefecture, some 200km northwest of Tokyo.
The rice-growing region was hit by a 6.8 magnitude quake on
23 October, and 39 people have died as a result of that.
It was followed by hundreds of aftershocks which forced more than 50,000 people to abandon their homes for temporary shelters.
Tokyo Electric Power Co said a reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant automatically shut down when today's tremor hit.
A bullet train linking Niigata with Tokyo ground to a halt during the quake but no passengers were injured.
