The quake hit the Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu island at 16:27 local time (07:27 GMT) on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands of people being told to move to evacuation shelters.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reported the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1, which the US Geological Survey later measured as a 6.8. Quake magnitude figures are often updated as seismologists obtain and analyse new data.

Kumamoto – where the collapsed Aeon Mall is located – is a city on the Kyushu island of Japan.

The southern island of Kyushu is the third-largest of the four main islands in Japan, and the second most populous.

The Kumamoto prefecture is no stranger to earthquakes.

A total of 278 people were killed in 2016 by powerful quakes in Kumamoto and neighbouring Oita prefectures, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.