NewzRescue crews search for survivors at a collapsed house following a powerful earthquake in Yatsushiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture. (EPA Images pic)KUMAMOTO: Japanese emergency workers battled Thursday to rescue any remaining survivors from a devastated shopping mall, as the death toll from a major earthquake hit 30 and thousands sweltered in punishing heat.Prime minister Sanae Takaichi issued the new tally as Kumamoto officials said they have now extracted four bodies from the mass of rubble, steel and wires of the Aeon shopping mall after a suspected gas blast following Tuesday's quake.At the mall, "we have pulled out 10 people. Another five have suffered severe and minor injuries", an official from disaster management office in the southwestern region told AFP.Tuesday's 7.1-magnitude tremor caused widespread damage, flattening homes, damaging bridges, triggering fires and leaving tens of thousands of residents without power and water in temperatures forecast to hit 38C this weekend.Hundreds of elderly people - Japan has the world's second-oldest population - slumbered on thin mats on the hard lobby floor at a community centre in Uki city as they sought relief from the punishing heat."Thank God for these shelters," said one woman, who declined to give her name, as people slept between chairs and tables or gathered around a television to watch the news.She had tried to stay home, or rest 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," chimed in father-of-four supermarket employee Hiroyuki Matsushima, 53.Narrow escapeThe shopping mall was evacuated after the earthquake but around 50 minutes later the facility was gutted by the massive blast with an unknown number of employees still inside.Businessman Fumihiko Matsuura, 56, said he had watched the latest "Toy Story" movie at the mall only a week or so ago."I was here.
"It's like I narrowly escaped the danger."Footage from inside showed rescue workers in orange overalls and white helmets picking their way through a mass of twisted steel, dangling cables and chunks of ceiling.Five people were also confirmed killed and four others were unaccounted for at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro city, where par… The government issued the new tally as Kumamoto officials said they have now extracted four bodies from the mass of rubble, steel and wires of the Aeon shopping mall after a suspected gas blast following the quake AEON Mall shopping center, where an explosion occurred following a powerful earthquake, is seen in Kashima, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026.
(Kai Naito/Kyodo News via AP) AEON Mall shopping center, where an explosion occurred following a powerful earthquake, is seen in Kashima, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (Kai Naito/Kyodo News via AP) KUMAMOTO, Japan (AP) — Rural communities in southwestern Japan were struggling to get their lives back to normal Thursday, two days after a powerful earthquake set off an explosion at a mall, toppled a factory chimney and flattened homes, killing at least 23 people. Time was running out to find survivors, as rescuers continued to work in the Kumamoto area on Japan ’s southern main island of Kyushu, where the magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Tuesday.
The number of those missing was unclear. The quake left at least 63 people injured, five of them seriously, the Kumamoto prefectural government said. Survivors spoke about coming home and desperately pulling family members out of the wreckage.
Some had suffered injuries and were rushed to the hospital. Thousands of people spent another night at evacuation centers set up throughout the area in gymnasiums and other big spaces. Some homes were still without water or electricity, while others were simply afraid to go back.
Although Japan boasts strict building codes because of the frequency of quakes in the country, some homes in the area are in the older style of Japanese housing, making them relatively fragile. The most serious damage was at the Aeon Mall shopping center in the town of Kashima, which was bustling with thousands of people when the quake struck in the late afternoon. The company said some 3,000 customers were evacuated to a parking lot before the explosion happened in another part of the mall, where some people were still working.
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