A strong 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Japan's southern Kyushu region on Tuesday afternoon, with its epicentre in Kumamoto prefecture, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Authorities moved quickly after the tremor, issuing a tsunami warning for a wave expected to reach around one metre in height, Reuters reported.
Emergency earthquake alerts were also sent out across several prefectures on the island, including Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Saga, Oita and Miyazaki, urging residents to take precautions.
Japan's early warning network flagged the quake as having struck at a shallow depth of roughly 10 km, with the strongest shaking in the immediate area estimated at intensity 7, the top of the country's seismic scale. Initial estimates of the quake's strength shifted a few times in the minutes after it hit, a common feature of early seismic readings before more precise data comes in.
People in the warned zones were advised to seek shelter without delay, given how little time typically separates an early warning from the arrival of strong shaking, and to keep monitoring official channels such as NHK or disaster-alert apps for further updates once immediate safety was secured.
So far, there have been no confirmed reports of casualties or serious structural damage, though officials are still assessing the situation on the ground and watching for aftershocks.
Kyushu sits along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and has a history of destructive earthquakes, including a deadly sequence of quakes that struck the same Kumamoto region back in 2016.
(This is a developing story.)
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