ISLAMABAD - MILITANTS on Saturday killed two close aides of an Islamist hardline cleric who negotiated a peace deal in the northwest between Taleban rebels and the Pakistani government, the military said.

The militants ambushed a convoy of security forces carrying prisoners from Malakand town to Peshawar in the northwest of the country.

TOKYO - A MODERATE earthquake jolted the Tokyo area on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage and no tsunami warning was issued, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 and was focused 30km below the surface of the earth in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

BEIJING - HUNDREDS of rescue workers and volunteers were on Saturday searching for dozens of people feared buried alive when part of a mountain collapsed in a massive landslide in south-west China, officials said.

Some 74 people were still missing after the disaster struck on Friday afternoon in a mining district of the vast Chongqing municipality, a spokesman for the municipality government said.