An 8.5 magnitude earthquake has hit Japan's Ogasawara islands on Saturday evening and then rattled¹ most of the country.

Koji Nakamura is an Official of the Japan Meteorological Agency, and offers an analysis of the quake.

"The epicenter of this earthquake is extremely deep. Our observations of previous earthquakes with similarly deep epicenters show that there have not been big aftershocks of similar magnitude. We believe there is a relatively² low likelihood of large aftershocks with big tremors³."

The epicenter was about 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, with a depth of 590 km.

A deep quake means that shaking at the surface is less intense.

No injuries or damage were reported and no tsunami⁴ warnings have been issued.

However authorities are warning about the potential for landslides⁵ in quake-hit areas.