A powerful earthquake rocked Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thursday, triggering landslides that crushed homes, knocking out power and forcing a nuclear power plant to switch to a backup generator.

The magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck southern Hokkaido at 3:08 a.m. local time at the depth of 40 kilometres, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. The epicentre was east of the city of Tomakomai but the shaking buckled roads and damaged homes in Hokkaido's prefectural capital of Sapporo, with a population of 1.9 million.

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