Passengers crowd at Tokyo Station's Shinkansen, or bullet train, ticket barrier in Tokyo.

    TOKYO, Aug. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- A powerful earthquake registering an estimated magnitude of 7.2 struck northeastern Japan just before noon Tuesday, injuring at least 58 people mostly in Miyagi Prefecture and jolting an extensive area across the country, including Tokyo.

    Four people sustained serious injuries in the 11:46 a.m. (0246 GMT) quake, but there had been no reports of deaths or missing people as of 8 p.m. (1100 GMT), according to a Kyodo News tally. Injuries were also reported in Tokyo, Fukushima, Iwate and Saitama prefectures.

    The quake originated in the Pacific about 80 kilometers off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture and took place at a thrust fault, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The focus was about 42 km below the surface of the sea.

    The town of Kawasaki in southern Miyagi Prefecture registered alower 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, and the temblor was felt as far north as Hokkaido down to the Kinki regionin western Japan, the agency said. The quake registered 4 on the Japanese scale in central Tokyo.

    An intensity of lower 6 is defined as being capable of damaging wall tiles and windowpanes in many buildings and where many people find it difficult to keep standing.

    The meteorological agency warned of the possibility of an aftershock with an intensity of around upper 5 on the Japanese intensity scale taking place in the coming several days.

    The agency also issued a tsunami warning and lifted it after waves about 10 centimeters high were observed on the coast of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, just after noon.

    Town officials in Shizugawa in the same prefecture said a rise of 40 cm in the sea level was recorded twice at the town's port.

    At a recently opened indoor pool in Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, one person was seriously injured and 25 others sustained slight injuries when the ceiling collapsed. There were 265 people in the pool at the time of the quake, according to Kyodo.

    Several landslides and house collapses have been reported in Miyagi Prefecture and other quake-hit areas, injuring other 33 people.

    More than 19,000 households in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures were without electricity after the quake, with about 1,700 households in Ishinomaki and Miyagi prefectures still without power as of 5 p.m. (0800 GMT), Tohoku Electric Power Co. said.

    Operations at some nuclear power plants in Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures, including the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, automatically stopped when the quake struck.

    The quake wreaked havoc with the transportation systems amid a rush of summer vacationers, many of whom were stuck at stations.

    Bullet train services in the quake-hit areas were suspended but there were no reports of derailments or injuries. The subway system in Sendai was temporarily shut down as well.

    A section of the Tohoku Expressway in Miyagi Prefecture was reopened after being closed off briefly, and runways at Narita andHaneda airports, which serve the Tokyo metropolitan area, and Sendai airport were also temporarily closed.

    The strong quake prompted the central government in Tokyo to set up a task force to respond to quake damage and dispatch a team of officials to Miyagi Prefecture to assess the damage and gather information.

    The meteorological agency said Tuesday's temblor "originated almost at the same spot as the 1978 (Miyagi) earthquake but the magnitude was smaller than expected".

    It was referring to the magnitude 7.4 earthquake which struck Sendai and nearby areas in June 1978, killing 28 people and injuring more than 10,000.

    A government panel said in January there is a 99 percent chance that a quake of magnitude 7 or above would hit the area within 30 years.

    Nine quakes of magnitude 6.4 or above, including the latest one,have occurred along the coast off Miyagi Prefecture since 1933.

    On July 23, a magnitude 6.0 quake shook Tokyo, injuring at least 27 people and paralyzing transportation in the Japanese capital. Enditem