YAME: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said 13 people have been found dead after a powerful quake shook part of southwestern Japan and rescue work was continuing Wednesday morning for the missing.
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Kumamoto area on the southern main island of Kyushu late Tuesday afternoon.
Takaichi said many other people were injured or still missing as rescue work continued overnight.
Part of a shopping center collapsed, apparently due to a gas leak, and a huge chimney at a paper factory collapsed.
The quake collapsed the second floor of the Aeon Mall in Kashima Town, trapping people, according to the fire department in the prefectural capital of Kumamoto.
A chimney collapsed at the Nippon Paper Industries Co.'s Yatsushiro factory, trapping people under the debris, the Kumamoto emergency team said.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said more than 260,000 people were advised to evacuate, most of them in Kumamoto prefecture, but also in the neighboring Nagasaki prefecture.
The affected area is about 900 kilometers (540 miles) southwest of Tokyo, the country's capital.
