Pakistan, July 28 -- A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Japan's southern Kumamoto prefecture on Tuesday, causing injuries, damaging buildings, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting transport services across the Kyushu region.

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According to the Japan Meteorological (JMA), the inland earthquake triggered emergency alerts for Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Saga, Oita and Miyazaki prefectures. Authorities initially issued a tsunami warning for waves of up to one metre but lifted the advisory less than two hours later after no significant tsunami activity was detected.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said authorities had received reports of multiple i...