6.7 Magnitude Quake Rattles Japan

TOKYO — A magnitude 6.7 earthquake injured at least 39 people and knocked out power to hundreds in a mountainous region of central Japan late Saturday. Firefighters were dispatched in the middle of the night to rescue people trapped inside homes in the village of Hakuba, west of Nagano. Police said at least seven of the injuries were "serious." Power and water were out to around 500 villagers in the region, and at least one train line was stopped due to a landslide blocking tracks.

Ryo Nishino, a restaurant owner in Hakuba, a ski resort village west of Nagano, told Japanese broadcaster NHK that he had "never experienced a quake that shook so hard. The sideways shaking was enormous," he said, according to The Associated Press.

The hardest-hit area appeared to be Hakuba, which hosted events in the 1998 games and where at least 30 homes were destroyed, the Nagano prefecture government told the AP. Another seven homes were lost in Otari, a nearby village to the north, AP reported.