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Quake toll and damage
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Tuesday in Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan, and Japan’s authorities said the death toll could now stand at 36 as the figure was still being verified.
“Authorities say the death toll could now stand at 36.”
NHKニュース said the quake measured the maximum of 7 on the Japanese intensity scale and that 1,500 houses have been confirmed damaged, while more than 9,500 people have been evacuated.
The earthquake also triggered an explosion at a shopping mall in Kashima Town, where rescuers pulled 12 people out and seven died with five injured, while an elderly man was reportedly found unconscious on Friday under a collapsed wall at another mall in Uki City.
In Yatsushiro City, officials said 11 people became trapped at a Nippon Paper Industries plant after a chimney collapsed, and only two survived.
The Kyushu Shinkansen resumed service between Hakata and Kumamoto on Friday, but officials said it will be difficult to restart operations between Kumamoto and Shin-Minamata in August.
Rescue, heat, and shelters
As rescue operations continued in the Kumamoto area on Kyushu, the AP reported that hope was fading two days after the quake set off an explosion at a mall and toppled a factory chimney, with 25 deaths confirmed as related to the disaster and nine more deaths under investigation.
The AP said the quake left at least 86 people injured, five of them seriously, and that nearly 19,000 homes were still without electricity while more than 9,000 people were staying in the roughly 400 shelters.
The AP described residents in Hikawa camping in classrooms and vehicles, with more than 800 of the town’s about 4,500 households destroyed or damaged, and officials delivering bottled water and packaged instant rice at the town hall entrance.
The AP also reported that the Ministry of Environment sent out a heatstroke alert for the Kumamoto area, with temperatures rising above 33 C (91 F) Thursday.
In Hikawa, the AP quoted doctor Yutaka Kobayashi saying, “We have to make sure elderly people are not developing heatstrokes or dehydration,” as he toured evacuation centers to assess evacuees’ conditions.
Competing death counts
By Friday, multiple outlets reported different updated death tolls for the same Kumamoto earthquake, with Anadolu Ajansı saying the death toll had risen to 35 and that it had not yet been confirmed whether all deaths could be directly attributed to the earthquake.
“the death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Japan's southwestern Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu Island on Tuesday has risen to 35”
Anadolu Ajansı said the Japan Meteorological Agency measured the earthquake at magnitude 7.1 while the US Geological Survey (USGS) and Germany’s GEOFON estimated it at 6.8, and it reported the quake registered a maximum 7 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale.
NPR said the Kumamoto prefectural government confirmed 34 deaths as related to the disaster, with one more death still under investigation, while also reporting that the magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu on Tuesday.
NPR reported that at the Aeon Mall shopping center in Kashima, seven people were confirmed dead and 11 had been rescued, and it quoted Japanese Chief Cabinet Sec Minoru Kihara telling reporters in Tokyo on Friday that “seven people were confirmed dead and 11 had been rescued.”
NPR also said a search operation had ended at a Nippon Paper Industries factory where a chimney collapsed, with searchers rescuing 11 people there while nine others were confirmed dead, as the death toll and missing figures remained uncertain.
