(CNN) A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck early Saturday in Japan's Kyushu island, the same region a 6.2 quake struck two days earlier.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the latest quake struck just west-southwest of Kumamoto-shi and about 8 miles south-southeast of Ueki -- the epicenter of the late Thursday tremor that left nine dead.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured or killed as a result of Saturday's seismic event. Nor was it clear how much damage, if any, had been caused, though there's plenty of reason to be concerned.
"No question, this is a large and very important earthquake," said Doug Given, a geophysicist with the USGS. "And it will do a lot of damage."
The quake prompted the Japan Meteorological Agency to issue a tsunami advisory for coastal regions of Japan on the Ariake Sea and Yatsushiro Sea around 2 a.m. Saturday (1 p.m. ET Friday). Tsunami advisories are issued when the tsunami height is expected to between 0.2 and 1 meter (0.65 to 3.3 feet). A warning would be for larger tsunamis.
The agency subsequently lifted all tsunami warnings and advisories.
As Given noted, "the four islands of Japan are on the edge of what's traditionally been known as the 'Ring of Fire'" -- a stretch along parts of the Pacific Ocean prone to volcanoes and earthquakes.
Victor Sardina, a geophysicist in Honolulu, Hawaii, told CNN that the latest quake was about 30 times more powerful than Thursday's deadly tremor. He predicted "severe, serious implications in terms of damage and human losses."
The shallow depth of the quake -- about 10 kilometers or six miles -- and the densely populated area where it struck could prove to be devastating, according to experts.
Television images showed mostly desolate streets, damaged buildings and shards of broken glass on the streets. Aftershocks as strong as magnitude-5.3 struck in the hours after the quake.
Journalist Mike Firn in Tokyo told CNN he felt the temblor in a building some 900 kilometers, or more than 550 miles away from the epicenter.
"The building started shaking," he said. "It was swaying quite strongly for over a minute... Buildings were swaying and cracking."
The latest tremor suggests that the one Thursday was a foreshock, though USGS expert cautioned "that's not to say that the Earth can't produce a bigger earthquake still to follow."
"But statistically, it's more likely that this latest event will be followed by aftershocks, which are all smaller."
Baby pulled from rubble after earlier quake
This happened about a full day after rescuers found an 8-month-old baby girl -- alive -- in the ruins of a home destroyed by the earlier quake on Japan's Kyushu island.
Rescuers had been told there was a baby inside the collapsed house, but aftershocks from the quake prevented the use of heavy equipment at the site. Yet, after six hours after the infant was trapped, she was pulled from the rubble early Friday.
"It was miracle she was unharmed," Hidenori Watanabe, a spokesman for the Kumamoto Higashi fire department, told CNN.
Fifty rescuers -- wearing dark uniforms and white hard-hats with lights -- scoured the large pile of rubble that just hours before had been a home. The infant's mother and grandmother had managed to escape.
The little girl was finally found safe amid the debris in a space under one of the house's pillars, according to Watanabe.
This happened in the middle of the night, in an area lit only by spotlights.
Carefully, rescuers passed the barefooted baby to one another, before she finally got to crews on the ground and was taken swiftly away.
News Sources: CNN
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