A powerful earthquake has killed at least 18 people in southwestern Japan and left dozens trapped beneath a collapsed shopping mall and a paper factory, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi calling the search a "race against time."
The magnitude 7.1 quake struck the Kumamoto area on Kyushu, Japan's southern main island, on Tuesday afternoon, flattening homes, triggering a gas explosion at a crowded mall, and toppling a factory chimney that buried workers beneath tons of debris. By Wednesday, soldiers from the Japan Self Defense Forces and emergency crews, joined by firefighters from Taiwan, were combing through wreckage at multiple sites across the region while aftershocks continued to rattle an already shaken population.
At least 62 people were injured, six of them seriously, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government. Nearly 34,900 homes lost electricity. Roughly 15,000 had no running water. More than 8,800 displaced residents crowded into over 400 emergency shelters, and officials were rushing to install air conditioning as summer heat compounded the misery.
The most devastating single site was the Aeon Mall in the town of Kashima. The shopping center's second floor collapsed during the quake, and roughly an hour later a massive gas explosion ripped through the structure, blowing off exterior walls and exposing its steel skeleton. Witnesses reported smelling gas before the blast. Four people were confirmed dead at the mall, and three remained missing as of Wednesday.
The destruction carried a bitter irony. Fox News reported that the Aeon Mall had just reopened on June 13 after years of reconstruction following Kumamoto's devastating 2016 earthquake. The company had described the project as a "re-start" initiative marking both the shopping center's 21st anniversary and the region's recovery. Weeks later, that recovery lay in ruins.
Approximately 3,000 customers were evacuated to a parking lot before the gas explosion. But Breitbart reported that 20 to 30 mall employees remained unaccounted for, and rescue operations at the site were halted at one point due to ongoing aftershock risks.
Aeon President Akio Yoshida held a news conference in Kumamoto on Wednesday, bowing deeply alongside two other executives before addressing reporters.
"We take it seriously that an explosion happened and precious lives were lost."
Fumika Ono, a 19-year-old who had been shopping at the mall with her older sister when the quake hit, lost her balance and ducked for cover. She managed to escape safely, one of the fortunate ones.
In the city of Yatsushiro, a chimney at a Nippon Paper Industries factory collapsed, killing five workers. Seven others were pulled from the debris alive, but four more were still believed trapped as of Wednesday. The New York Post reported that approximately 40 injured people were taken to a hospital in Yatsushiro, with about 50 others transported to a hospital in Kumamoto city.
The earthquake also claimed the life of at least one foreign national. The Vietnamese government confirmed that a Vietnamese technical intern was killed when a crane fell on him at the factory where he worked. He had arrived in Japan in January. Seven other Vietnamese interns at the same facility were evacuated safely. The intern's wife, also Vietnamese, was injured when a wall collapsed and was being treated at a hospital.
Across the broader region, at least eight fires broke out in the earthquake's aftermath, adding to the chaos facing first responders already stretched thin.
For residents of Kumamoto, the disaster felt like a grim replay. A deadly earthquake struck the same area roughly 10 years ago, killing at least 50 people, a toll that AP News reported exceeded 200 when broader casualties are counted.
Kiyoshi Matsunaga, a 74-year-old resident, was pushing a shopping cart toward a cash register at a supermarket a few blocks from the Aeon Mall when the quake struck. Items tumbled from shelves around him.
"I was frightened."
Matsunaga said the shaking reminded him of the earlier Kumamoto earthquake, a memory that, for many in the region, never fully faded.
In the Nuyamazu district, a pair of temple gates at a 16th-century Buddhist temple collapsed. The gates had been repaired just five years earlier, part of the long and costly rebuilding that followed the previous quake. Yuki Kiyozumi, the temple's deputy chief priest, had just returned home from a meeting and was about to feed her cat when the shaking forced her to crawl across the floor. On Wednesday she was cleaning up damaged ornaments and furniture.
"I don't even know if or how we can rebuild them again."
Her words captured a weariness shared across the region, a community that had spent years and enormous resources rebuilding, only to watch those efforts reduced to rubble in seconds.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi moved quickly to frame the government's response, offering condolences to victims and urging those in affected areas to take care of themselves in the summer heat. She told reporters the government was preparing to deliver food and other necessities to hard-hit areas.
"There are people who are still waiting to be rescued, and it's a race against time. We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can."
Bullet train services to and through the region remained suspended on Wednesday. Aso Kumamoto Airport resumed operations, though some airlines canceled flights as a precautionary measure. Japan's Meteorological Agency urged residents to remain cautious over the following two to three days, warning of continued aftershock risks, potential building collapses, and landslides.
Japanese officials also warned residents to take precautions while sleeping, advising them to avoid areas where furniture could fall on them during aftershocks, a reminder that the danger was far from over.
Power sources were being added to shelters to provide air conditioning as temperatures climbed. With nearly 35,000 homes still dark and 15,000 without water, the basic infrastructure that modern life depends on had simply stopped functioning for tens of thousands of people.
The death toll stood at 18 as of Wednesday, but with seven people still missing at the mall and factory sites alone, and the full scope of damage across the region still being assessed, officials expected that number to rise.
Japan builds to some of the strictest seismic codes on earth, and its disaster-response systems are among the most practiced anywhere. When a magnitude 7.1 earthquake can still kill 18 people and leave a rebuilt mall in ashes six weeks after its grand reopening, it is a reminder that nature does not grade on a curve, and that no amount of preparation guarantees safety when the ground gives way beneath you.
