Baby rescued after deadly Japan quake
A baby has been rescued from rubble after a powerful earthquake in southern Japan leaving at least 29 people dead and hundreds injured.
As rescue workers toiled through the night, an eight-month-old baby girl was pulled from the rubble alive and unharmed.
Tens of thousands of people fled their homes after the 6.5-magnitude quake struck the southwestern island of Kyushu yesterday evening.
Many aftershocks followed the quake, which hit about 9:26 pm yesterday.
Images from the scene show massive pieces of broken concrete strewn in the streets, houses collapsed and damaged roadways.
Train services were temporarily halted after a train derailed in the Southwestern town of Kyushu.
Rescuers were concentrating their searches in the worst hit town of Mashiki, near the epicentre of the quake where eight of the nine deaths occurred.
Officials have warned the death toll could rise as rescuers scoured the collapsed structures.
Officials say some 1600 military personnel were joined by nearly 2 000 police officers and more than 1300 firefighters to help in the search and rescue efforts.
The initial quake, which struck at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres was followed two and a half hours later by another measuring 6.4 magnitude, according to Japan's meteorological agency.
The US Geological Survey measured it a lower 6.2 magnitude.
The Asian country is one of the most seismically active countries in the world and suffered a massive undersea quake on March 11, 2011 that sent a tsunami barrelling into the country's northeast coast.
Some 18 500 people were left dead or missing, and several nuclear reactors went into meltdown at the Fukushima plant in one of the worst atomic accidents in recent years.
Below are scenes from the damage caused by the 6.5-magnitude earthquake.
(File photo: Getty Images)