Rescuers in Japan clawed through the shattered remains of a shopping centre in a desperate search for survivors, as the confirmed death toll from a powerful earthquake rose to 28 and thousands of people endured stifling heat without basic utilities.
The government announced the updated toll as officials said four bodies had been recovered from the tangled concrete, steel and wiring of the Aeon shopping centre, which was torn apart by a suspected gas explosion after Tuesday’s quake.
At the shopping centre, “we have pulled out 10 people. Of them, four were confirmed dead. Another is without vital signs. Another five have suffered severe and minor injuries”, an official from the disaster management office in the southwestern region said.
The 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck on Tuesday left a broad trail of destruction, toppling houses, damaging bridges, sparking fires and cutting off power and water for tens of thousands of residents as temperatures were forecast to climb to 38C this weekend.
People find relief from the heat at a community centre in Uki city
“Thank God for these shelters,” said one woman, who declined to give her name, while evacuees stretched out between chairs and tables or clustered around a television for updates.
She said she had first tried to remain at home, and then to sleep in her car, “but it’s too hot and there are too many mosquitoes”.
“In this heat, if you don’t have electricity and air conditioning, it’s very tough,” said Hiroyuki Matsushima, a 53-year-old supermarket employee and father of four.
A close call
The shopping centre had been cleared after the earthquake, but roughly 50 minutes later a huge blast ripped through the building, with an unknown number of employees still believed to have been inside.
Businessman Fumihiko Matsuura, 56, said he had gone to the same shopping centre only about a week earlier to watch the latest Toy Story film.
“I was here. I was just here,” he said. “It’s like I narrowly escaped the danger.”
The Aeon Mall in Kumamoto was heavily damaged by an explosion following the earthquake
Video from inside the ruined complex showed rescue teams in orange uniforms and white helmets inching through twisted metal, hanging cables and fallen sections of ceiling.
Five people were also confirmed dead at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro city, where part of a red-and-white smokestack came down, while four others remained unaccounted for, a government official said.
Utilities severed
As of this morning, about 22,670 households and facilities were still without electricity.
Water supplies were also disrupted for around 84,000 homes as of yesterday.
Television footage showed residents lining up for petrol and drinking water, while authorities moved hundreds of air conditioning units into shelters to help people cope with the heat.
A section of the expressway in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, as damaged following the earthquake
The US Geological Survey put the quake’s strength at 6.8, below Japan’s measurement of 7.1.
Japan is among the most earthquake-prone countries on Earth, positioned above four major tectonic plates on the western edge of the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.
Kumamoto suffered two devastating earthquakes in 2016, disasters that killed 273 people and injured more than 2,800.
The Japanese archipelago, with a population of about 124 million, is shaken by hundreds of tremors in a typical year and accounts for roughly 18% of the world’s earthquakes.
Most of those quakes are minor, though the severity of damage depends heavily on where they strike and how deep beneath the Earth’s surface they occur.
Japan still lives with the trauma of the 2011 disaster, when a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed or left around 18,500 people missing and crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant.
