A powerful earthquake struck Japan on early Thursday morning injuring as much as 102 people and wrecking 31 buildings in the northern regions of the island, authorities said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor measured 6.8 degrees on the Richter scale and lasted for about 40 seconds, The Associated Press reported. Most of the people who suffered injuries due to the earth quake were old and about 6,700 homes were left without electricity said Japan’s Disaster Minister Shinya Izumi according to the AP.

The ground began to shake at about 12:26 a.m. (10:26 a.m. ET Wednesday). The quake’s epicenter was in eastern Honshu, about 25 km (15 miles) east-northeast of the town of Morioka and 80 km (50 miles) south of Hachinohe according to the U.S. Geological Survey report.

The earth quake was centered 111 km (69 miles) below Earth's surface in Iwate prefecture, a mountainous, sparsely populated region, and was felt all the way to Tokyo. Fortunately, the tremor’s epicenter was not higher, a fact which would have resulted in a much stronger shaking and much more damage and probably life loss.

"Despite such a powerful earthquake, the damage was minimum because the epicenter was so deep," Ryohei Morimoto, geologist and emeritus professor of geology at Tokyo University, according to the AP.

However, the Japanese are quite used to earthquakes and the local authorities are very experienced when it comes to cleaning up the mess. A clean-up operation is under way in the regions worst hit by the tremor and most services have been restored. Only the disruption to train services is still reported and some smaller roads are blocked by landslides.
The residents who needed to be rushed to the hospital as soon as possible were taken by helicopter as the Japanese military offered to help.

A more powerful tremor struck northern Japan's Iwate Prefecture last month causing the death of at least 10 people and injuring more than 200.