Japan’s emergency services worked throughout Thursday to find survivors of the recent earthquake that hit the south western city of Kumamoto. Rescue operations are underway as workers search through the wreckage of the shopping mall, where the death toll has now risen to 34, local authorities said. Footage showed officials in orange overalls and white helmets picking their way through a tangle of twisted steel, dangling cables and collapsed ceiling sections.
Nearly 9,500 locals across the region have taken shelter in evacuation centres in southwest Japan’s Kyushu. Homes were destroyed, infrastructure damaged and fires broke out in multiple locations after the quake, leaving tens of thousands without power or water, local authorities said.
The Kumamoto Disaster Management Office issued a new tally, with seven bodies being extracted from the rubble, steel and wires of Aeon Shopping Mall after a suspected gas blast compounded by Tuesday’s quake. The Yatsushiro city, where a part of red and white smoke stack collapsed, confirmed eight people dead at the Nippon Paper Industries factory. Five others are reportedly to be in critical condition after the earthquake on Tuesday.
While rescue and relief efforts continue, a Kumamoto official warned of heatstroke risk in temperatures that were forecast to reach close to 40 C on the weekend. The Self-Defense Forces (SDF) —Japan’s military — is installing about 300 air-conditioning units in evacuation centres and other key sites around Kumamoto. Immediately after the quake, SDF trucks towed water tanks to community centres and schools across Yatsushiro city, returning to city hall to refill from emergency tanks beneath the building. Residents were limited to 5 litres each
Nearly 9,500 locals were in evacuation centres in the region’s southwest Japan on the island of Kyushu.Tens of thousands of residents were left without power and water as the earthquake caused widespread damage, destroying homes, damaging civilian infrastructure, triggering fires.The town of Hikawa was one of the areas worst hit, where many older structures crumpled in the quake and where residents still had no water or power on Thursday.