Seiji Kihara

Mitsui and Mitsubishi are shareholders in the Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas (LPG) project.
Shares of Mitsui fell by 5.7 percent and of Mitsubishi by 5.4 percent respectively, by the midday break in today's trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, reports Reuters.

Japan lodged a protest with China on Monday over a Chinese naval vessel sailing near disputed islands, a Japanese official said, as reports emerged of Russia also sending its own navy ship to the area.

The islets in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku by Tokyo and the Diaoyu by Beijing, are at the centre of a long-running dispute between Japan and China.

The quake had a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter scale, and the final number of victims and injured is still unknown because it is not known how many people were buried in the rubble. Therefore, it is feared that the total number of victims could be significantly higher, reports the BBC.