There was no risk of a tsunami from the quake, which had a magnitude of 5.3, according to the US Geological Survey.
The Japan Meteorological Agency earlier put it at 5.6.
Both runways at Narita Airport, the main international gateway to Tokyo, were closed for staff to inspect for any damage. Neither was found to have been affected.
Reporters said the quake developed as a series of vertical bounces as well as a side-to-side shaking.
The epicentre was located in the northern part of Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. National broadcaster NHK reported the effects were felt over a large area around the capital.
However, there were no immediate reports of injuries or any damage, including at any of the shuttered nuclear power stations in the region.
A massive 9.0 magnitude quake that struck off the country's northeast coast in 2011 generated a powerful tsunami that wreaked havoc in a wide area.
As well as killing more than 18,000 people, it destroyed thousands of homes.
It also sparked a nuclear emergency at Fukushima when waves swamped the cooling systems of reactors.
Japan is located at the junction of a number of the earth's tectonic plates and experiences around a fifth of the planet's most powerful quakes every year.
Rigid building codes and strict enforcement mean that even powerful quakes frequently do little damage to infrastructure.
Three dead in attack targeting President's son in SW Pakistan: officiaal A probe has been ordered into the incident, the official added
Syria regime launches 15 air raids around Palmyra: monitor
BEIRUT, May 25 : (AFP) -- Syrian government aircraft launched at least 15 strikes in and around the ancient city of Palymra on Monday, following its fall to the Islamic State group, a monitoring group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least four civilians had been killed in the raids, which were the most intense since the jihadists overran the city on Thursday.
"Since this morning, government aircraft have carried out at least 15 air strikes in Palmyra and the areas around it," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He said that dozens of people had also been wounded in the raids, and that IS was believed to have taken losses when a military security building was hit.
The strikes targeted several areas of the city, including some close to the city's famed Greco-Roman ruins, a UNESCO world heritage site, he said.
A military source confirmed operations were under way in and around Palmyra.
"Military operations, including air raids, are ongoing in the area around Al-Suknah, Palmyra, the Arak and Al-Hail gas fields and all the roads leading to Palmyra," he said.
"We are pursuing Daesh wherever they are," he added, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
IS is accused of executing hundreds of people in and around Palmyra since it swept into the oasis city last week after a lightning advance across the desert from its stronghold in the Euphrates Valley to the east.
The Observatory said on Sunday that it had documented the executions of at least 217 people, among them 67 civilians, including 14 children.
Some of those killed had been beheaded, Abdel Rahman said, adding that the jihadists had also taken some 600 people prisoner.
Syrian state media said at least 400 civilians had been killed by IS in Palmyra, most of them women, children and old men.
The pro-government Al-Watan daily reported on Monday that the number of executions had risen to 450.
Three dead in attack targeting President's son in SW Pakistan: 0fficiaal
QUETTA, Pakistan, May 25 : (AFP) -- Three people were killed and four others injured when Baluch separatists targeted a convoy carrying the Pakistani president's son in the southwestern province of Baluchistan late Sunday night, police said.
"An explosive laden motorbike parked at a roadside was blown up with a remote control device when [the] convoy of President Mamnoon Hussain's son, Salman Mamnoon was passing by late Sunday night in Hub Industrial Zone near the border with Karachi," local police official Ghulam Mustafa Shah told AFP Monday.
He said the president's son was unharmed as his vehicle had already passed the spot where the device exploded hitting a rikshaw and the last vehicle of the convoy.
"The rikshaw driver, a 12-year-old child in the rikshaw and a passerby died at the spot while four police personnel of the security squad received minor injuries," he said.
Zahid Ullah, a senior police official confirmed the incident and said the president's son owns a dairy farm in the area and is a frequent visitor.
"The president's son was the apparent target of the attack," he said.
Meerak Baluch, spokesman of the Baluch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP.
"We claim responsibility for the attack, it was in response to the military operation carried out in various areas of Baluchistan," he said.
Resource-rich Baluchistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
Rebels began their fifth insurgency against the state in 2004, with hundreds of soldiers and militants killed in the fighting since then.
11 killed, 20 injured in road mishap in western India
NEW DELHI, May 25 : (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people were killed and 20 others injured in a major road mishap in the western Indian state of Maharashtra Monday, a senior police official said.
"The mishap happened when two buses collided head-on on the national highway 8 that connects Mumbai to Ahmedabad in the neighboring state of Gujarat," he said, on condition of anonymity.
While 11 people, including a five-year-old girl, were killed on the spot, those injured have been admitted to a local hospital, the official said, adding the victims included passengers and drivers of both the buses.
Local TV channels reported, quoting eye-witnesses that the driver of one of the buses felt asleep on the wheels that led to the accident.
A probe has been ordered into the incident, the official added.
More than 430 dead in India heatwave
HYDERABAD, India, May 25 : (AFP) -- More than 430 people have died in two Indian states from a days-long heatwave that has seen temperatures nudging 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), officials said Monday.
Officials warned the toll was almost certain to rise, with figures still being collected in some parts of the hard-hit Telangana state in the south of the country, and with no end in sight to the searing conditions.
Large parts of India, including national capital New Delhi, have endured days of sweltering heat, prompting fears of power cuts. But the highest temperatures have been recorded in Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state.
Andhra Pradesh authorities are urging labourers and others not to work long hours in the heat of the day after 246 people died from the high temperatures there in the last week.
"The majority of the victims are people who have been exposed to the sun directly, usually aged 50 and above and from the working classes," P. Tulsi Rani, special commissioner of Andhra Pradesh's disaster management department, told AFP.
Rani said although the deaths started occurring on Monday last week, the number of cases snowballed towards the end of the week after days of scorching heat.
"We are asking them to take precautions like using an umbrella, using a cap, taking a huge quantity of liquids like water and buttermilk, and wearing cotton clothing," he said.
Another 188 people have died in Telangana, mostly since the middle of last week, although numbers were still being confirmed and were highly likely to rise, D. Vani, an official with the state's disaster management department, told AFP.
Hundreds of people, mostly from poorer sections of society, die at the height of summer every year across the country, while tens of thousands suffer power cuts from an overburdened electricity grid.
The kind of heatwave we are seeing now is slightly higher than normal. The temperatures here have almost touched 48-49 degrees Celsius (118-120 degrees Fahrenheit)," said B. R. Meena, principal secretary of revenue for Telangana.
Several deaths have also been reported in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan in recent days including a woman who collapsed and died on the roadside in Bundi city, the Press Trust of India said.
In the eastern city of Kolkata, taxi unions have urged drivers to stay off the roads between 11am and 4pm because of the heat.India's weather bureau warned that "heatwave to severe heatwave conditions would prevail" in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in coming days as well as in the northern states and New Delhi.
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