At least 13 people have been killed in southwestern Japan after a magnitude-7.1 earthquake, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Wednesday, as rescuers searched for people trapped in collapsed buildings, including a shopping mall.
“Even now, there are people waiting to be rescued, and this is a race against time. We will marshal all available resources on the ground to save and rescue as many people as possible,” Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo.
The quake struck Tuesday afternoon in Kumamoto prefecture on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu at a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles, prompting tsunami warnings and evacuation from coastal areas. The epicenter was about 12 miles south of the city of Kumamoto, which has a population of about 700,000.
While the tsunami warning was lifted shortly after, the quake caused extensive damage throughout the prefecture, including to historic buildings such as Kumamoto Castle, a popular tourist site that is still under repair from another deadly quake in the same area in 2016.
It also ruptured roads and left thousands of homes without power, with officials warning residents to beware of heatstroke as temperatures reach well into the 90s.
Three people were killed at the partially collapsed Aeon mall near Kumamoto, while others were pulled alive from the rubble. Mall officials said Wednesday that three people were still missing and that they were investigating whether a gas leak caused an explosion.
Five people were killed after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory in the city of Yatsushiro, Reuters reported, citing Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Thousands of soldiers have been deployed to assist rescue teams across the affected area, while hospitals have treated dozens of people for injuries.
Some of those injured were passengers on Japan’s high-speed trains, according to operators, which suspended all train services on Kyushu immediately after the quake.
The violent shaking also derailed a freight train at the Yatsushiro station, NHK reported, citing the JR Freight Railway Company. Aerial video from NHK showed carriages overturned next to the track and collapsed pillars of the Yatsushiro Shrine.
Bullet trains and some airport operations remained suspended Wednesday, while some 35,000 households were still without power, Kyushu Electric Power said on its website.
Japan’s meteorological agency warned there could be more earthquakes of similar intensity.
“For the next week or so, especially the next two to three days, we would like people to watch out for potential earthquakes with a maximum seismic intensity of 7,” it said Wednesday, according to NHK.
There appeared to be no damage to the nuclear reactors in the area. Japan’s nuclear authority informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Sendai nuclear power plant was not damaged in the earthquake.
“The IAEA will continue to monitor the situation,” the U.N. watchdog said Tuesday on X.
Japan’s nuclear plants come under acute focus during earthquakes, especially after 2011, when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami led to meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The East Asian country is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, sitting on the “Ring of Fire,” where several tectonic plates converge, triggering many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Nearly 20% of global earthquakes measuring 6.0 or higher occur in Japan.
