Emergency workers search for survivors in recent earthquake in Japan

The death toll from this week's earthquake in Japan's Kumamoto area rises to 30

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi says.

Search and rescue continues as emergency workers comb through

collapsed buildings and homes looking for trapped survivors.

Firefighters during a rescue at the Nippon Paper Industries Factory in Kumamoto

southwestern Japan Wednesday.

A chimney collapsed killing at least five people with 10 workers rescued.

Service members of Japan's Self-Defense Force joined in the rescue operation.

Some of the most serious damage, according to authorities,

was at the Aeon Mall shopping center in the town of Kashima

which was bustling with thousands of people when the magnitude 7.1 earthquake

struck. The second floor collapsed, trapping people.

Sixty-two people were injured, six seriously.

The company says around 3,000 customers were evacuated to the

parking lot before a gas explosion occurred in another part of the mall.

Rescue workers search collapse homes.

Various roofs fallen as people in the rural communities

are struggling to get their lives back to normal

two days after the powerful earthquake.

Time is running out to find survivors as rescuers

continue looking for survivors. The number missing unclear.

This is the destruction in Yatsushiro, Japan.

vehicles under collapsed buildings.

Workers attending to collapsed structures at a temple.

This resident remembers the last earthquake a decade ago.

"I was just like 10 years ago," she says. "There was a bam

sound, it was like in a film. Is this for real? During the previous

quake it felt like the ground was breaking up, violently."

The Chinese embassy in Japan on Wednesday issued

an advisory urging Chinese citizens in the country to remain

vigilant against earthquake risks following 148 strong

aftershocks within 12 hours in southwestern Japan

resulting in heavy casualties.