A 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Japan on Tuesday, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and prompting the collapse of several buildings, including a shopping mall.
Japanese officials instructed roughly 300,000 people in the country’s southern Kumamoto prefecture to seek shelter at evacuation centers.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Wednesday morning local time that 13 people have been found dead and many other people were injured or still missing as rescue work continued overnight.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and depth of just over 6 miles, was at the highest end of the seismic intensity scale. The U.S. Geological Survey later revised its measurement to magnitude 6.8. Its epicenter was about 12 miles south of Kumamoto, central Kyushu island’s largest city, with a population of around 700,000, according to officials.
The Japanese Cabinet Office’s disaster management division said the earthquake struck around 4:27 p.m. local time (3:27 a.m. ET), with a tsunami advisory issued for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas minutes later. The warning was later lifted, state broadcaster NHK reported.
An unknown number of people were trapped in a shopping mall, according to fire officials, who said an explosion had been heard on the building’s second floor. Twenty to 30 mall employees were unaccounted for, NHK reported.
Commercial broadcaster TBS quoted local police as saying “quite a few” people are believed to have been killed after the explosion. A second broadcaster, Fuji TV, said that multiple deaths had been confirmed at the mall.
State broadcaster NHK carried footage of almost a dozen fire trucks in the facility’s parking lot. Images also showed the mall’s collapsed ceilings and facade and a debris-littered road.
Several other buildings were also damaged, video from the region showed. At least 12 houses collapsed, and at least 50 people were injured.
Aerial footage from NHK showed that a chimney at a Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro, a city in the Kumamoto prefecture, had partially collapsed. Local police said that several people who work at the plant are unaccounted for.
“We are gathering information on whether there are any casualties, but we are concerned because we cannot reach them,” a spokesperson for the plant told NHK.
A verified video from the city showed that a rupture on the Kyushu Expressway had trapped vehicles. NHK showed aerial images of an elevated stretch of the highway where two sections had become misaligned.
Train services around the Kyushu island were suspended, rail operator JR Kyushu said.
Takaichi said in a statement that 300 service members were being dispatched to the disaster zone.
“The government will spare no effort in emergency disaster response measures, with the highest priority placed on saving lives and rescue operations led by local police and fire departments,” her office said in a statement.
“Strong tremors, earthquakes of similar intensity may continue to occur over approximately the next week,” the statement added.
Japan experiences tremors — both minor and major — almost every day, making it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In 2016, Kumamoto was devastated by a series of quakes that killed nearly 300 people. The East Asian country sits on the “Ring of Fire,” where several tectonic plates converge, triggering many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Nearly 20% of global earthquakes measuring 6.0 or higher occur in Japan. Since 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and killed nearly 20,000 people, Japan has significantly strengthened its earthquake warning systems and evacuation protocols.
Japan’s nuclear authority informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Sendai nuclear power plant was not damaged in Tuesday’s earthquake, the IAEA said on X.
Kyushu Electric Power said it had not found any abnormalities at either the Genkai Nuclear Power Station in Saga prefecture or the Sendai Nuclear Power Station in Kagoshima prefecture, NHK reported. The radiation levels around the stations have also not changed, it said.
Video published online and geolocated by NBC News appeared to show part of the outer walls of the Kumamoto Castle, a popular tourist destination in the area, damaged and surrounded by a cloud of dust.
An X account appearing to belong to the tourist attraction said that its operations would be suspended for at least the rest of Tuesday “due to the impact” of the earthquake.
Webcam video published online also appeared to show buildings shaking in Kumamoto city.
