Business was winding down for the day at Sendan Shokudo, a restaurant in the southwestern Japanese city of Yatsushiro, when the entire building suddenly swayed.

Everything on the kitchen shelves fell to the floor; Bowls and glasses shattered.

The restaurant’s co-owner, Hiroko Ogata, 75, had just entered.

“I was shocked and scared,” she told BBC News. “I went under one of the tables immediately, but the table abruptly moved right, left, right, left, with me.”

Ogata has lived in Yatsushiro, in central Kumamoto Prefecture, his entire life.

The area is located on an active tectonic fault system and is no stranger to tremors. In 2016, a pair of earthquakes killed 277 people and injured another 2,800.

But Ogata “has never experienced such a shock.”

“The last earthquake 10 years ago was nothing like this one,” he said. “I thought I was going to die.”

At least 13 people died in the wake of the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Kumamoto on Tuesday night.

Three of them are from the Aeon shopping center in the city of Kumamoto, where dozens are believed to still be trapped.

Rescue efforts are underway, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has warned that emergency services are in a “race against time”.