A powerful earthquake that struck the Kumamoto area of southwestern Japan late Tuesday has killed at least 13 people, injured hundreds and left rescue teams racing against time to reach those still trapped beneath collapsed buildings on the island of Kyushu.
The quake, registering a maximum 7 on Japan’s shindo intensity scale, hit the region on the afternoon of July 28, knocking out power and water to tens of thousands of households and triggering a large-scale mobilisation of the country’s Self-Defense Forces.
“There are people who are still waiting to be rescued, and it’s a race against time,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Wednesday. “We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can.”
Some of the most severe damage occurred at the Aeon Mall in Kashima Town, where the second floor collapsed and trapped shoppers inside. At the Nippon Paper Industries Co. factory in Yatsushiro, a chimney gave way, burying workers under debris. Emergency crews and military personnel have concentrated their efforts on both sites.
Medical facilities in the region absorbed a wave of casualties. A hospital in the city of Yatsushiro took in roughly 40 injured people, while about 50 others were transported to a hospital in Kumamoto city.
Authorities reported that major public facilities and core infrastructure largely withstood the tremor. The Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed that no abnormalities were detected at three nearby nuclear power plants, easing concerns about a wider crisis.
The affected area lies roughly 900 kilometers (540 miles) southwest of Tokyo. Takaichi said the Self-Defense Forces had joined civilian rescue workers to deliver water, food and other essentials to the hardest-hit communities, and urged residents to guard against heatstroke amid high summer temperatures.
Industry operations were briefly disrupted before resuming. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which runs a chip plant in the Kumamoto region as part of Japan’s push to rebuild domestic semiconductor capacity, restarted operations after halting production as a precaution and reported no significant damage to its facilities.
Japan sits along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences frequent earthquakes, making it one of the most disaster-prepared nations in the world. Kyushu, in particular, was struck by a series of deadly quakes in 2016 that killed dozens and displaced thousands. The region has also endured other recent extreme weather events, echoing the disruption seen during a record snowstorm earlier this year.
Rescue operations were continuing Wednesday morning, with officials cautioning that aftershocks could complicate efforts and further destabilise damaged structures. The full scale of casualties and material losses is expected to become clearer as search teams reach areas that remain difficult to access.