At least 13 people have been killed after a powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck near the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday.
Rescue teams are continuing efforts to find people trapped under collapsed buildings, with authorities warning that the operation is a race against time.
“Even now, there are people waiting to be rescued, and this is a race against time. We will marshal all available resources on the ground to save and rescue as many people as possible,” Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo.
The death toll increased from the three fatalities reported shortly after the earthquake struck.
The earthquake caused widespread damage across the region, cutting power to thousands of homes and damaging roads.
Rescuers pulled eight people from the rubble of a partially collapsed shopping centre early on Wednesday. Two women in their 20s were killed after an explosion of unknown origin tore through the building about an hour after the earthquake.
Local media reported that authorities are investigating a possible gas explosion.
Emergency fire crews, police and military personnel are focusing their efforts on parts of the building where people were heard calling for help.
The Aeon shopping centre, the largest in the prefecture with around 200 shops, suffered severe damage. Footage showed one side of the building ripped open, exposing steel structures and scattering debris across the car park.
The full scale of the disaster remains unclear.
Around 20 to 30 shopping centre workers were reported missing on Tuesday, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. Seven people were also missing after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory, while four others were seriously injured.
Hospitals across the region have been treating dozens of injured people, with some facilities struggling to cope with the number of patients.
Authorities said around 260,000 people across Kumamoto Prefecture were advised to move to evacuation centres.
The earthquake’s epicentre was located around 20 kilometres south of Kumamoto City, the largest city on central Kyushu island, with a population of about 700,000.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency has warned residents in areas affected by the strongest tremors to remain alert for further powerful earthquakes over the next week.
Officials also cautioned about the risk of landslides, particularly in areas where roads and infrastructure have been damaged.
More than 36,000 homes remained without electricity on Wednesday, raising concerns about heat-related illnesses as temperatures reached around 34 degrees Celsius.
A hospital in Uki City, close to the epicentre, said it was unable to operate normally due to the power outage caused by the earthquake.
“It has become like a field hospital,” the head of the hospital’s administrative department told NHK.
Another hospital in the city suspended new admissions after treating 86 injured people, including three with serious injuries.
Several passengers travelling on high-speed trains at the time of the earthquake were also injured, train operators said.
Several major companies with facilities in the region announced temporary production suspensions.
Semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron and car manufacturer Honda said operations at their plants would remain halted through Wednesday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, evacuated workers from its local facility as a precaution but said operations had started to resume late on Tuesday.
Located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, Japan experiences frequent seismic activity and accounts for around 20% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or higher.
The latest earthquake comes a decade after a devastating quake struck Kumamoto in 2016. That disaster killed 275 people, injured more than 2,700 others and damaged thousands of buildings, including parts of the city’s historic castle.
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