Two huge earthquake rock Japan sparking Tsunami fears By Peter Walker

TWO giant earthquakes have struck southern Japan leaving an entire region on tenterhooks in fear of aftershock tremors.

RATTLING: A burning building and a shop wreckage amid the two earthquakes

Tremors measuring at a magnitude of at least 6.0 struck seven miles east of Kumamoto in the southern Japanese island of Kyushu at 9.26pm local time today.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage but some buildings collapsed.

Neither have any tsunami warnings been issued.

But then later today the US Geological Survey reported a 6.4-magnitude quake around 6.6 miles south west of Kumamoto.

Footage has already emerged, shown below, from inside the local NHK newsroom in Kumamoto when the quake struck.

Kasumi Nakamura, an official in the village of Nishihara near the epicentre of the quake, said that the rattling grew more and more violent over a 30-second period.

"Papers, files, flower vases and everything fell on the floor," he told a telephone interview with local media NHK.

Japan-based British expat Joseph Tame has said on Twitter that the Fukuoka nuclear plant in Kagoshima is running as usual despite the quake.

HISTORY: The earthquake is the strongest since the 2011 disaster that killed more than 15,000

RUMBLING: Aftershocks are causing havoc around the quake's epicentre

Mikado Shimbum, a Japanese English language news service, said there were "problems registered".

The region is now bracings itself for a series of unpredictable aftershocks.

The far eastern Asian nation has been blighted by earthquakes – often in close proximity to its nuclear plants – over recent years.

BLIGHTED: A United States Geological Survey image showing the concentration of the quake

A volcano erupted just 30 miles from a Kogoshima nuclear reactor in Japan last year.

More than 15,000 people died after the Tōhoku earthquake in March 2011.

The 9.0-magnitude disaster was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan and the fourth most powerful in the world since records began in 1900.

Today's disaster also followed a 7.2-richter scale earthquake in Vanuata in the South Pacific which sparked tsunami fears earlier this month.

there's just been an earthquake in japan, i hope there won't be a tsunami and that everyone's okay

— Cabbage Dystopia (@Adlez27) April 14, 2016

@sasskumoto wow. I hope everything is okay! Is there a tsunami warning or anything?

— +ALYSSA (@arashi_licious) April 14, 2016

 Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has since said that while initial reports estimated the magnitude at 6.4 or 6.2, the official number has been knocked down to 6.0.

"We intend to do the utmost to grasp the situation," he said.

"I'm now planning to hear what we have gathered on the situation."

CONCERNS: People are evacuated from a hotel after the shake in Kumamoto

Kyushu Electric Co said it was checking conditions at its Genkai and Sendai nuclear plants – although no worries have surfaced so far.

Some high-speed trains were halted as a precaution.

Pictures show how watermelons fell from store shelves and lay crushed on the floor of a supermarket in Kumamoto city near the epicentre.