A magnitude 7.1 earthquake in southern Japan has killed at least 34 people and left thousands without power or water, with rescue crews racing a brutal heat wave to reach survivors still trapped in rubble.
The quake struck Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu late Tuesday afternoon, ripping through a crowded shopping mall, toppling a factory chimney, and flattening homes across several towns. By Thursday, the death toll had nearly doubled from the previous day's count, and officials acknowledged they still did not know how many people remained missing.
Kumamoto's prefectural government reported 86 people injured, five of them seriously, while more than 9,000 residents sheltered in roughly 400 emergency sites across the region. Nearly 19,000 homes lost electricity. In the hard-hit town of Hikawa, running water and power were gone entirely, and town officials said emergency food stocks of canned bread and instant rice were running low.
The Aeon Mall in the town of Kashima was bustling with thousands of shoppers when the earthquake hit. Staff evacuated roughly 3,000 customers to the parking lot, but an explosion, AP News reported it was triggered by a gas blast, tore through another section of the building. The second floor collapsed, trapping workers who had stayed behind.
By early Thursday, rescuers had pulled 11 people from the mall wreckage. Six were confirmed dead. The cause of the explosion has not been fully explained by authorities, and it remains unclear how many people may still be buried inside.
At a Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro, a chimney came down on workers. Ten were rescued, but eight died and one person remained missing as of Thursday. Breitbart reported that among the earlier confirmed fatalities was a Vietnamese factory intern killed by a falling crane, the first known foreign death from the disaster.
Japanese government footage showed rescue workers drilling through collapsed concrete sections at multiple sites, searching for anyone still alive. Ground Self-Defense Force service members arrived in Hikawa with trolleys of fresh water. Medical teams dispatched from Aichi Prefecture, hundreds of miles to the northeast, fanned out across evacuation centers to check on the elderly and injured.
The disaster's second crisis, a dangerous heat wave, arrived before the first one ended. Japan's Ministry of Environment issued a heatstroke alert for the Kumamoto area on Thursday, with temperatures expected to reach 91 degrees Fahrenheit. For the thousands of displaced residents already short on water, the heat compounded an already dire situation.
Akiko Inazaki, a Hikawa resident in her 30s, had been living in a tent pitched in her own yard since the quake knocked out her home's water and electricity. She came to the town hall parking lot to collect water from military distribution points.
Inazaki told CBS News:
"Fresh water is so valuable."
She said she had drunk so little in the days after the quake that she nearly suffered heatstroke herself. She planned to ration what she collected, using it "little by little."
Yoshiaki Nakashima, a 66-year-old Hikawa resident, chose to sleep in his car rather than return to his damaged home or crowd into a shelter. He brought his pet dog. Aftershocks kept him too anxious to stay indoors.
"It's difficult to turn over while sleeping in a car."
Even so, Nakashima said, living at a shelter felt even harder.
Dr. Yutaka Kobayashi, a physician dispatched from Aichi Prefecture, spent Thursday touring evacuation centers in Hikawa to assess conditions. His concern was blunt.
"We have to make sure elderly people are not developing heatstrokes or dehydration."
Officials moved some evacuees to three public schools equipped with air conditioning. Power sources were being added to other shelters to run cooling units, but the scale of displacement, more than 9,000 people spread across 400 sites, made coverage uneven.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters the central government would take a lead role in coordinating the response. She identified restoring electricity, gas, and water, and supplying fresh drinking water, as immediate priorities.
"The needs on the ground are constantly changing. To put to rest the people's feelings of uncertainty, we will do all that needs to be done."
Her earlier statement, issued the night of the quake, had pledged the government would "work tirelessly through the night to swiftly assess the overall damage situation and carry out emergency disaster response measures, starting with the rescue and lifesaving of those affected."
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the earthquake at magnitude 6.8. Several supporting outlets, including the New York Post, reported the Japan Meteorological Agency's reading at 7.1, a discrepancy common between agencies using different measurement methodologies. The Post reported that a brief tsunami advisory was issued and later lifted, and that Japanese meteorological officials urged residents to remain cautious for two to three days due to aftershock risk.
Hiroki Shimoda, an official at Mifune town hall in the affected region, captured the visceral fear of the moment. "The shaking reminded me of the Kumamoto quake 10 years ago, and I was frightened," he said, referencing the devastating 2016 earthquakes that struck the same prefecture.
The earthquake's footprint covered a wide swath of Kumamoto Prefecture. National Review's photo gallery documented collapsed buildings, buckled roads, and flattened structures across Yatsushiro City, Hikawa Town, and Kashima Town. The Yatsushiro Shrine's worship hall collapsed entirely.
In Hikawa, one of the hardest-hit communities, the damage was total for many families. Homes were destroyed. Streets were impassable. The town hall became a lifeline, the place where residents lined up for bottled water and packaged instant rice handed out by local officials and military personnel.
Yuzuru Tamura, a Hikawa town official, warned that emergency food supplies were starting to run out. The town's ability to sustain displaced residents without outside resupply was narrowing by the day.
Across the broader region, around 90 people were taken to hospitals in Yatsushiro and Kumamoto cities with injuries, the New York Post reported. At the Aeon Mall site, the initial count of missing employees ranged from 20 to 30, a figure that shifted as rescuers worked through the debris and the death toll climbed.
Several major questions remained unanswered by Thursday evening. Authorities had not disclosed a total count of the missing. The precise cause of the Aeon Mall explosion, whether a ruptured gas line, electrical failure, or another mechanism, was still unexplained. And the duration of shelter operations for more than 9,000 displaced residents was uncertain, with no public timeline for restoring basic utilities to the worst-affected towns.
International support began to materialize. The United Nations said it stood ready to assist. Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te called Japan a "true friend" and said his government was monitoring the situation closely, prepared to cooperate.
Japan has endured catastrophic earthquakes before and rebuilt every time. But for the families sleeping in cars and rationing water in 91-degree heat, the question is not whether the country recovers, it is whether help arrives before the next aftershock, the next heatstroke, or the next empty shelf.
