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Quake, blast, collapses
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s southern Kyushu island on Tuesday, shaking the area around Kumamoto and leaving dozens injured or missing after part of a shopping center and a huge chimney at a paper factory collapsed.
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The quake hit around 4:27 p.m. local time, and in Kashima Town the second floor of the Aeon Mall shopping center collapsed, trapping an unknown number of people, while NHK said the collapse came after an explosion believed to have been triggered by a gas leak at the building.
At the Nippon Paper Industries Co. Yatsushiro factory, a chimney collapse left 11 people trapped underneath the debris, with two later found without vital signs and the conditions of nine others unknown, as the search and rescue effort continued.
Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said more than 260,000 people were advised to evacuate, most in Kumamoto prefecture and also in neighboring Nagasaki prefecture, while a tsunami advisory for the Ariake and Yatsushiro Seas was lifted within two hours.
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told journalists there were reports of damage to roads, bridges and buildings, as well as blackouts and fires, though details were unclear, as officials investigated the extent of the damage.
Missing workers, official warnings
In Kashima, the BBC reported that four people were rescued and another 10 were missing after a blast at the Aeon Mall in Kashima, Kumamoto prefecture, following the magnitude 6.8 tremor.
The BBC also said the quake hit Kyushu island at 16:27 local time (07:27 GMT) on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands of people told to move to evacuation shelters, and that the tsunami warning was lifted within one hour.
Japan’s NHK said around 20 to 30 workers at the prefecture’s largest shopping mall were unaccounted for after it was rocked by an explosion, while police and fire services searched for survivors as aftershocks continued.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo, "We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas," and she urged everyone to take action to protect themselves by evacuating to a safe location.
At the same time, the BBC reported that in Yatsushiro City two people were found in a state of "cardiac arrest" and nine are unaccounted for after a chimney collapsed at Nippon Paper's Yatsushiro Plant.
Aftershocks, infrastructure and power
As rescue operations continued, the BBC said Japan’s Meteorological Agency reported more than 60 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 1 to 4, complicating the search for people missing in the collapsed mall and damaged paper factory.
The AP said the Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported major public facilities or infrastructure were not damaged, while Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were found at three nearby nuclear power plants.
In Kumamoto, the quake also disrupted transport and power, with the AP reporting that Shinkansen bullet trains and local trains in Kyushu were suspended for safety checks and that the runway at Aso Kumamoto Airport was closed, with "no prospect of resuming operations" anytime soon.
The AP also said Toyota Motor Corp. suspended the operations at three of its factories in Kyushu in part because of safety issues, while Honda Motor Co. and Nippon Paper also suspended operations and Yamato Transport Co. stopped delivery services in and out of Kumamoto.
The BBC added that the Japan Meteorological Agency reported it was a magnitude 7.1 tremor while the US Geological Survey later measured it as a 6.8, and it noted that quake magnitude figures are often updated as seismologists obtain and analyse new data.
