A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck southern Japan early on Saturday morning (local time), less than 24 hours after a smaller quake killed at least nine people.

The quake’s epicenter was near the city of Kumamoto and measured at a depth of 40 km (25 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The USGS minutes prior had reported a 7.1 quake with a depth of 7 km close to the same location.

The quake sparked a tsunami warning which has reportedly been lifted.

Hundreds of rescue workers were already combing through the rubble from a a 6.2 quake a day before that toppled homes and killed at least nine people.

Some 1,600 soldiers had joined nearly 2,000 police officers and 1,300 firefighters to recover from Thursday’s earthquake that toppled buildings, killed at least 9 people and injured more than 800 others, according to government spokesman Yoshihide Suga.

One bright spot was the televised overnight rescue of a baby who was carried out of the debris of a collapsed home.

Aftershocks

More than 100 aftershocks have occurred since the first 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu, about 1,300 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.

A Kumamoto official said about 44,000 people spent the night in shelters after fleeing their homes.

As rescuers continue to search wreckage for possible survivors, officials said the death toll was unlikely to rise significantly.

Water service has been disrupted in some areas, forcing residents to haul water from local offices to their homes.

Suga said there are no apparent abnormalities at nearby nuclear facilities. The epicenter of the quake was about 120 kilometers northeast of the only operating nuclear plant in the country.

Most of Japan’s other nuclear reactors remain offline after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in 2011 that triggered a huge tsunami.

Reporting by VOA and Reuters.