TOKYO — At least nine people were killed and more than 800 injured by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake Thursday night that toppled houses and buckled roads in southern Japan, the government's chief spokesman said.
Firefighters carry an injured person after an earthquake struck southern Japan.
Yoshihide Suga said he would visit the area Friday to assess the damage. He said 1,600 soldiers had been deployed, and TV reports showed some delivering blankets and adult diapers to the thousands of people who took shelter because their homes were wrecked or unsafe.
About 44,000 people sought refuge, though some returned home in the morning.
The quake struck at 9:26 p.m. at a depth of 11 kilometers (7 miles) near Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There was no tsunami risk.
The area is 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
The worst damage was in the town of Mashiki, 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu, said Kumamoto prefecture disaster management official Takayuki Matsushita.
Suga said 44 of the injured were seriously hurt. Those killed ranged in age from 29 to 94. Most were elderly.
"The shaking was so violent I couldn't stand still," said Hironobu Kosaki, a Kumamoto Prefectural Police night-duty official.
Suga said at least 19 houses collapsed, and hundreds of calls came in reporting building damage and people buried under debris or trapped inside.
With daybreak, the extent of the damage was becoming apparent: collapsed walls, streets warped by manholes that were pushed higher by the earth's movement, an expressway crunched and buckled.
Rescue operations were repeatedly disrupted by aftershocks. By early Friday there had been 116 such jolts strong enough to be felt.
"There was a ka-boom and the whole house shook violently sideways," Takahiko Morita, a Mashiki resident said in a telephone interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK. "Furniture and bookshelves fell down, and books were all over the floor."
Morita said some houses and walls collapsed in his neighborhood, and water supply had been cut off. Early Friday, residents were hauling water from local offices to their homes to flush toilets.