Japan earthquake: Survivors describe the shock of the 6.8-magnitude tremor

Business was winding down for the day at Sendan Shokudo, a diner in Japan’s south-western city of Yatsushiro, when the whole building suddenly lurched.

Everything on the kitchen shelves cascaded to the floor; bowls and glasses shattered.

The restaurant’s co-owner, 75-year-old Hiroko Ogata, had just walked in.

“I was surprised, and scared,” she told BBC News. “I went under one of the tables right away, but the table moved sharply towards the right, left, right, left, with me.”

There’s a reason Ogata knew how to react so swiftly: she has lived in Yatsushiro, in central Kumamoto prefecture, her whole life.

The area is located on an active tectonic fault system and is no stranger to tremors. In 2016, a pair of earthquakes killed 277 people and injured 2,800 others.

But Ogata has “never experienced this big of a jolt”.

“The last quake 10 years ago was nothing like this one,” she said. “I thought I would die.”

At least 13 people have been killed in the wake of the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Kumamoto late on Tuesday.

Of that number, three died in the Aeon shopping mall in Kumamoto city, where a number of people remain unaccounted for.

Rescue efforts are under way, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has warned that emergency services are in a “race against time”.