A damaged road is seen in Ishikawa prefecture in Japan yesterday. A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 jolted the west coast of central Japan on Sunday, damaging hundreds of homes - Reuters

NOTO PENINSULA, Japan (Reuters):

A strong earthquake killed one person and injured at least 160 in central Japan yesterday, demolishing houses, buckling roads, triggering landslides and cutting off water supplies to thousands of homes.

More than 1,300 people evacuated to shelters after 44 houses collapsed and some 200 others, mostly wooden with heavy tile roofs, were seriously damaged by the 6.9 magnitude earthquake, which struck at 9:42 a.m. (0042 GMT), officials and media said.

The focus of the quake - which was also felt in Tokyo - was 11km (seven miles) below the seabed off the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture, about 300km (190 miles) west of Tokyo.

"It was frightening so I dashed outside. It shook and shook," said Shina Yamashita, 88, one of about 200 mostly elderly people taking shelter in a civic centre in the rural city of Wajima, Monzen district, one of the hardest hit areas.

More than 100 aftershocks jolted the area, including one with a magnitude of 5.3, more than eight hours after the first quake, which was the biggest in the area since records began in 1926. Officials warned more aftershocks could follow.

Death trap

A 52-year-old woman died in Wajima, a resort and fishing town on the western side of the peninsula, after being trapped under a stone lantern that toppled in her garden.

In Nanao, a resort and fishing city with a population of around 60,000, ambulance services were flooded with calls to help people who had suffered burns and injuries.

"I looked outside and electricity poles were shaking," said Hiroshi Tanaka, a fire department official. "Residents called in but they were calm and there weren't many serious injuries."

The Japan Meteorological Agency originally estimated the magnitude at 7.1 but later revised it to 6.9.

Some trains were halted and people were trapped in elevators. Power outages hit nearly 500 homes in the area and 9,000 had their water supplies cut, public broadcaster NHK said.

"Furniture toppled over with a crash and dishes scattered and broke," said Yuko Ikawa, 38, who fled to the Monzen evacuation centre with her family.

"The biggest worry is there is no tap water," she added.

Officials closed an airport on the peninsula because of cracks on the runway and halted traffic on damaged expressways. High-speed bullet trains resumed service after being checked.

Separately, two strong earthquakes struck on Sunday near Vanuatu in the South Pacific, Australia's geological agency reported, but there were no immediate reports of damage.