At least 39 people have been injured in a magnitude 6.7 earthquake that has struck central Japan.
Television footage showed a dozen houses have collapsed in Hakuba village in the northern part of Nagano prefecture, 280 kilometre northwest of Tokyo, following the 10.08pm quake on Saturday.
Hundreds of residents evacuated their houses in the region as the quake caused power and water outage, reports AAP.
The epicentre was in northern Nagano at a depth of 10km, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
China's national CCTV television showed footage taken from a mobile phone of panicked residents running in the streets in what appeared to be a commercial area.
A woman reached by phone in the area told CCTV that buildings around her withstood the shaking. Xinhua reported minor cracks in some airport buildings, adding that flights had been unaffected.
In May 2008, a 7.9 magnitude quake rocked Sichuan, killing more than 80,000 people and flattening swathes of the province. It was the worst quake disaster to hit China in more than three decades.
