Big aftershocks continue to jolt Japan

There were no initial reports of damage from the magnitude-5.9 aftershock and there was no risk of a tsunami similar to the one last month that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing Japan's worst-ever nuclear plant disaster.

Japan has been hit by a string of smaller quakes since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the country on March 11.

Meanwhile, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, citing no sources, reported that a secret plan to dismantle Tokyo Electric Power Co, which runs the radiation-leaking Fukushima plant, was circulating within the government.

The proposal calls for putting TEPCO, the world's largest private electricity company, under close government supervision before putting it into bankruptcy and thoroughly restructuring its assets.

In the wake of the nuclear crisis, the government ordered 13 nuclear plant operators to check and improve outside power links to avoid earthquake-related outages that could cause safety systems to fail as they did at the Fukushima plant, Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters yesterday.