A powerful earthquake shook southern Japan on Sunday, killing one person and injuring more than 500 others as it rocked office buildings, knocked out power and prompted a tsunami warning.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency cancelled the tsunami advisory after an hour.

The agency said it registered 85 aftershocks late Sunday and warned an aftershock of magnitude 6.0 was possible.

Pedestrians walk past a brick wall knocked down by a quake in Fukuoka, southern Japan on Sunday. (AP Photo)

The hardest hit area appeared to be the island of Genkai, where 65 homes were destroyed by a mudslide. The military brought 500 of the island's 700 residents to the mainland.

NHK TV showed footage of office towers and street lamps shaking violently in Fukuoka city, about 900 kilometres southwest of Tokyo.

An initial quake of magnitude 7.0 struck shortly before 11 a.m. local time. It was centred at an extremely shallow depth below the ocean floor off the coast of Kyushu Island, the JMA said.

An old woman died in hospital after a wall collapsed on her, the Kyodo News agency reported. Hers is the only reported death.

Public broadcaster NHK TV said many people were injured as cabinets fell or by breaking glass. A man in Okawa city broke bones when he jumped from the second floor of his home.

About 1,000 people in Fukuoka prefecture spent the night in temporary shelters.

Sidewalks cracked and bits of retaining walls fell off.

Japan often hit by quakes

Earthquakes are common in Japan, which lies in one of the world's most seismologically active regions.

In the worst recent incident, a series of quakes struck in late October and killed 39 people. The quakes cut water and gas services in Niigata prefecture, about 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, and left more than 46,000 people living in emergency shelters.

• FROM OCT. 24, 2004: Deadly earthquakes strike Japan

That quake was the most devastating in Japan since 1995, when a quake with a magnitude of 7.2 killed 6,000 people in Kobe.