A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck south Japan, leaving at least 100 people injured and trapping many inside a shopping mall. The earthquake hit Kumamoto prefecture on the southern Kyushu island late on Tuesday afternoon, causing widespread damage to roads, bridges, and buildings, and knocking out power to thousands of homes. Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told reporters that authorities were still assessing the extent of the damage in the area, which was devastated by another deadly quake a decade ago.
Takaichi urged everyone to take action to protect themselves, including evacuating to a safe location, as about 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centers. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned that the areas with the biggest tremors will remain at risk of further strong quakes and landslides for about a week, as the shallow earthquake is triggering active seismic activity in the area. So far, there have been more than 60 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 1 to 4, and a tsunami warning was issued immediately after the quake but was lifted within two hours.
One person was killed in south-west Japan when a house collapsed during the earthquake, and two hospitals reported more than 50 injuries each, including 10 in a serious condition. Several people on a high-speed train at the time of the quake were also injured, and multiple people were unaccounted for after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory. An explosion occurred in an Aeon shopping mall shortly after the earthquake, trapping many people, and police said quite a few were presumed dead.
About 20 to 30 workers at the mall were unaccounted for, and four people had been taken to hospital, all of them conscious. The cause of the explosion remained unclear, but a government official said Aeon Kumamoto reported a gas leak. Kyushu Electric Power said 48,000 homes had lost power, while the railway company JR Kyushu suspended services, including its high-speed bullet trains.
Kumamoto airport also shut its runway as airlines diverted and cancelled flights. The telecoms operators KDDI and NTT Docomo said there was disruption to their mobile phone services owing to power shortages and transmission-line failures. The quake’s epicenter was about 12 miles south of Kumamoto, central Kyushu island’s largest city, with a population of about 700,000.
Some of the castle’s stone walls are said to have been damaged in the most recent quake. Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes, and accounts for about 20% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or more. The massive earthquake in Kumamoto 10 years ago killed 275 people and injured a further 2,739.
It damaged thousands of buildings including the city’s castle, a popular tourist site.
