Damage reported after another strong quake hits Japan

A powerful earthquake caused damage in southwest Japan early Saturday morning, after an earlier temblor left nine people dead.

Video footage from broadcaster NHK showed buildings where glass had shattered and signs collapsed in the Kyushu region, where authorities reported no abnormalities at two operating reactors at a nuclear power plant.

Kyodo news agency reported that the city hall building of Uto ın Kumamoto Prefecture partially collapsed after the tremor, whose magnitude was upgraded from 7.1 to 7.3.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was quoted as saying that it was feared to have resulted in “significant damage”.

While the Meteorological Agency lifted its earlier tsunami advisory warning of the possibility of a 1-meter wave in coastal areas along the Ariake Sea, Kyushu was rocked by another temblor of magnitude 5.8.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe canceled his scheduled visit to areas that were the hardest-hit by the initial magnitude 6.5 quake that struck Thursday night.

Nine people had been confirmed dead and more than 1,000 others injured Friday, and the region was hit by over 140 aftershocks -- the third highest figure in two decades.

In March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami left more than 18,400 people dead or missing and damaged four reactors at the Fukushima nuclear reactor, melting the cores in three of them and forcing more than 150,000 people to leave their homes.