CNN is outside Aeon shopping mall in Kumamoto, southern Japan, where at least three people are dead and three are missing, its operator said, after the building partially collapsed in a likely gas explosion after Tuesday’s 6.

Emergency responders are searching for people feared trapped in rubble after a magnitude-7.1 earthquake toppled buildings and sparked fires in Japan's Kumamoto prefecture.

The most serious damage was at the Aeon Mall shopping centre in the town of Kashima, which was bustling with thousands of people when the quake struck in the late afternoon on Tuesday local time.