A DEADLY earthquake has hit western Japan, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more.

Swindon Advertiser reporter Daniel Angelini missed being at the epicentre of the quake in Osaka by a matter of hours.

Daniel, who is spending two weeks in Japan on holiday with friends, said he could feel the tremors more than a hundred miles away in Okayama. Earlier that day he’d stopped with friends at Osaka train station.

“I didn’t know what was happening,” Daniel said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and the whole room was shaking.

“It was only slight at first, then after a few seconds everything shifted from side to side and I realised I was experiencing an earthquake.

“I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been in a situation like that before. The friends I’m travelling with were just as shocked.

“We’d been in Osaka just a few days earlier and were very glad we weren’t there last night. If we’d felt the quake as far away as Okayama I dread to think what it would have been like at its epicentre.”

The magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck shortly after 8am local time on Monday, north of Osaka at a depth of about eight miles, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The disaster’s victims included a nine-year-old girl and man in his 80s crushed by concrete walls. Another man, 84, died when a book shelf fell on top of him at home.