Powerful earthquake rattles southern Japan
A powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled southern Japan on Thursday night, according to the country's meteorological society and people who felt it on Twitter.
The quake, which was centered in the city of Kyushu in the Kumamoto prefecture, caused no major damage or fatalities, though a chief government spokesperson told Reuters that some buildings had collapsed.
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NHK reported home collapses in the area of Mashiki and said at least one house fire may have been caused by a natural gas explosion.
The meteorological agency said there was no danger of a tsunami in its aftermath, and a nuclear power plant in Kumamoto was also unaffected by the quake, according to Japanese news outlet Kyodo.
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Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 9:26 p.m. (1226 GMT) and was centered in the Kumamoto prefecture.
Japan's national public broadcasting station NHK tweeted a video showing the moment the quake began shaking its newsroom.
A second CCTV, also released by NHK, was seen violently shaking.
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Residents of the region tweeted photos that showed items in houses and businesses that were knocked off shelves.
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Residents are still reporting feeling aftershocks in the region.
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The US Geological Society indicated that the earthquake was a 6.0, pending revisions.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the quake's preliminary magnitude at 6 and said it was 23 kilometers (14 miles) deep. It did not expect major damage.
Footage on NHK showed a signboard hanging from the ceiling at its local bureau violently shaking. File cabinets rattled, books, files and papers rained down to the floor, and one employee appeared to have fallen off a chair, while others slid underneath their desks to protect their heads.
Additional information from the Associated Press.
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Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
