A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Tuesday has claimed at least 30 lives, with rescue workers still searching for survivors in the rubble of a devastated shopping mall in Kumamoto.
Emergency response efforts in southwestern Japan intensified Thursday as authorities continued extracting bodies from the ruins of an Aeon shopping mall destroyed by a suspected gas explosion following Tuesday's earthquake. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi confirmed the death toll had reached 30, with four bodies recovered from the mall's collapsed structure. Officials reported that ten people had been pulled from the debris at the shopping center, including four confirmed fatalities and one person found without vital signs, while five others sustained injuries ranging from severe to minor.
The 7.1-magnitude tremor caused extensive destruction across the region, collapsing residential structures, damaging infrastructure, and triggering fires that left tens of thousands of residents without electricity and water supplies. The timing proved particularly challenging as temperatures were forecast to exceed 38°C over the weekend. At a community center in Uki city, hundreds of elderly residents sought shelter from the oppressive heat on makeshift bedding, describing the conditions as unbearable without air conditioning during the power outages.
The shopping mall, which had been evacuated immediately after the earthquake, was gutted by the massive gas blast approximately 50 minutes later. An unknown number of employees remained inside the facility when the explosion occurred. Additionally, authorities confirmed five deaths and four missing persons at a Nippon Paper Industries factory in nearby Yatsushiro city, where a smokestack partially collapsed.
As of Thursday morning, approximately 22,670 households and facilities remained without electricity, while around 84,000 homes experienced water disruptions. The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 6.8, slightly lower than Japan's official 7.1 reading. This earthquake marks another major seismic event for Kumamoto, which experienced two devastating earthquakes in 2016 that killed 273 people.
