Rescue efforts in Japan continued after dark after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Kyushu in the country’s south-west on Tuesday afternoon local time. Search teams were reported to be looking for people still unaccounted for at a shopping mall and at a factory that collapsed during the shaking.
The latest reports suggest the focus remained on finding missing people as emergency crews worked into the night. The quake hit Kyushu with enough force to cause serious structural damage in some locations, raising concern about people who may have been trapped.
The tremor was felt well beyond the immediate epicentre. Felix Umland, a German photography student in Japan, told the BBC he was on the 13th floor of a hotel in Kagoshima, around 175km from the epicentre, when the earthquake hit. His account underlined how widely the shaking was experienced across the region.
As the response went on, attention stayed on the missing and on the condition of damaged buildings. With searches still under way overnight, authorities were working to assess the impact of the Kyushu earthquake and locate anyone still believed to be inside affected sites.
