TOKYO - Two moderate quakes shook southern and northern Japan on Monday but there were no reports of injuries or damage, officials said.
A tremor registering 4.9 on the Richter scale rocked Japan's southern Kyushu island at 1:24 am (1624 GMT Sunday), followed by a quake of 3.6 at 7:13 am (2213 GMT), the agency said.
The quake's hypocenter was 10 kilometers (six miles) below sea level off the western coast of Fukuoka, 850 kilometers (530 miles) southwest of Tokyo, it said, adding there was no danger of seismic waves.
"These are believed to be aftershocks of the March 20 earthquake," an agency official said.
March's 7.0-magnitude quake hit the Fukuoka region, the main population center of southern Japan, killing one person and injuring more than 700 people.
An aftershock measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale jolted the region on April 20, injuring dozens of people.
Separately in northern Japan, a quake of 4.6 struck at 4:46 am on Monday (1946 GMT) with the focus located off Fukushima prefecture about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
Japan, which lies at the junction of four tectonic plates, sees about 20 percent of the world's powerful earthquakes, frequently jolting Tokyo and other major cities where buildings are made to resist tremors.
05/01/2005 23:18 GMT