A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southern Kumamoto prefecture yesterday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall.
Speaking to reporters at her office in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said authorities were still assessing the full extent of the damage in the area, which was devastated by a deadly quake a decade ago.
“We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas, and there has also been damage to roads and bridges and the collapse of buildings,” Takaichi said.
“I ask everyone to take action to protect themselves, including evacuating to a safe location.”
Around 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centres, the disaster management agency said, while Takaichi said 3,600 soldiers would be deployed to help with the disaster recovery as aftershocks continued to rumble.
One hospital had reported more than 50 injuries, public broadcaster NHK said. Several people on a high-speed train at the time of the quake were also injured, media reported.
Multiple people were trapped inside an Aeon shopping mall rocked by an explosion that occurred after the earthquake, fire services said. Police said “quite a few” were presumed dead in the incident, broadcaster TBS reported.
An Aeon spokesperson said customers and employees were evacuated right after the initial quake and that the exact cause of the ensuing explosion was unclear.
Kazuya Tsurunaga told TBS he heard the explosion while cleaning up dishes broken by the earthquake inside a pub about 300m from the Aeon mall.
“It was a huge impact,” he said. “A large cloud of smoke billowed up, and because the wind happened to be blowing and the wind direction was towards the shop, the area around us was in a state like volcanic ash was falling.”
Several other buildings were also on fire or partially collapsed, according to footage from NHK, while large cracks appeared on major roads, including an elevated highway. Rail services were halted and flights grounded.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, evacuated workers from its plant in the area as a precaution, a spokesperson for the firm said.
Sony and Fujifilm also evacuated staff from their plants in the area, Nikkei newspaper reported.
The quake’s epicentre was about 20km south of Kumamoto, central Kyushu island’s largest city with a population of around 700,000. — Reuters
