Strong quake hits seas off Japan coast

TOKYO - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck in Pacific Ocean waters off Japan's eastern coast Thursday, but there was no danger of a tsunami, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The earthquake, which occurred at 2:04 p.m., was centered 87 miles below the earth's surface, near the island of Tori-shima, the agency said. Tori-shima is about 360 miles southeast of Tokyo.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Small earthquake shakes Melbourne

A shallow earthquake of magnitude 3.5 shook homes east of Melbourne just after 1.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

The quake's epicentre was in the Bunyip State Park, approximately 70 kilometres east of Melbourne, although residents would have felt the shudders up to 40 kilometres away from its centre.

Duty seismologist David Jepsen at Geoscience Australia said it was unlikely there would be any damage associated with the tremor.

The last earthquake of a similar strength was six years ago, although Melbourne residents experienced one with a magnitude 2.9 in October last year.

Today's tremor, defined as an intraplate earthquake, occurred when stresses in the earth's crust exceeded the strength of the rock above, causing the rock to break, Dr Jepsen said in a statement.

Australia's west braces for tropical storm

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Communities on Australia's north west coast prepared for a severe tropical cyclone expected to hit the region early on Friday, with mines and oil production shut down and emergency services placed on alert.

Cyclone George was expected to hit the remote coast between Port Hedland and Karratha early on Friday, bringing heavy rain and winds of up to 235 km per hour (146 miles per hour).

A second storm, tropical cyclone Jacob, was also heading toward Western Australia, but was still far off the coast and was 240 km south of the Australian territory of Christmas Island.

Mining company BHP Billiton Ltd./Plc. said it had closed its iron ore port operations in Western Australia's Port Hedland as George was expected to intensify from category three to a category four cyclone within hours, just one step short of the maximum level five.

"People have been sent home to look after their own properties," a company spokeswoman said.

Much of the offshore oil production in the area was also suspended as a precaution, affecting about half of Australia's daily oil output.

The storm was moving slowly south toward the coast, in an area known as Cyclone Alley, at 16 km (10 miles) per hour and the Bureau of Meteorology expected it to cross the coast around 6 a.m. on Friday (2200 Thursday GMT).

Emergency services issued a yellow alert -- the second highest -- for the area between Broome and Dampier, warning of destructive winds and advising people to shelter in the strongest parts of their homes.

Ships in the area's iron ore ports were heading to the safety of deeper water to ride out the cyclone and await the possible arrival of category two Jacob.

The storm threat revived memories of Cyclone Glenda, a destructive category four storm, which forced oil and gas fields to shut down and thousands of people to take shelter when it hit the region last March.

Destructive storms also caused havoc along Western Australia's southern coast and goldfields in January, bringing flooding and strong winds.

The weather bureau said George also threatened to bring extensive flooding and dangerous storm tides as it crossed the coast, after which its power was expected to weaken quickly.

Cyclones are a regular feature of the Australian summer in the tropical north and the season still has another month to run. The most deadly on record was Cyclone Tracy, which killed 65 people in the northern city of Darwin in 1974.