Major earthquake rocks southern Japan, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked southern Japan Tuesday, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and prompting the collapse of several buildings, including a shopping mall.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked southern Japan 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.

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. 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.

Japan’s Cabinet Office’s Disaster Management Division said the earthquake struck at 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 also been heard on the building’s second floor. Twenty to 30 mall employees were unaccounted for, state broadcaster NHK reported.