Japan earthquake: 13 dead, several missing after powerful tremors hit the country

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake near the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto has killed at least 13 people, while rescue teams continue searching for survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday.

"Even now, there are people waiting to be rescued, and this is a race against time. We will marshal all available resources on the ground to save and rescue as many people as possible," Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo, a day after the quake struck. The latest toll marks an increase from the three deaths reported earlier.

Also read: Earthquake in Japan damages historic Kumamoto Castle as powerful 7.1-magnitude tremor strikes Kyushu


The powerful quake left thousands of households without electricity and caused widespread damage to roads across the region.

Rescuers pulled eight people from the debris of a partially collapsed shopping mall early on Wednesday. Two women in their 20s were killed after an explosion of unknown origin ripped through the mall about an hour after the earthquake.

Authorities are investigating whether the blast was caused by a gas explosion, according to local media reports.

Firefighters, police and military personnel were concentrating rescue efforts on parts of the building from where distress calls had been received.

Officials said the full scale of the disaster is still being assessed.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that around 20 to 30 mall workers remained unaccounted for on Tuesday. Separately, seven people are missing after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory, while four others suffered serious injuries, according to a local government official. Hospitals were treating dozens of injured people.

Authorities also instructed around 260,000 people across the prefecture to move to evacuation centres. The region was hit by another deadly earthquake a decade ago.

The earthquake's epicentre was located about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Kumamoto City, the largest city in central Kyushu with a population of around 700,000.

Authorities have warned residents in the worst-affected areas to remain alert for strong aftershocks over the next week and the possibility of landslides.

With more than 36,000 households still without power, officials are also concerned about the risk of heatstroke as temperatures are expected to reach around 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.

SOME HOSPITALS OVERSTRETCHED

A hospital in Uki city, near the epicentre, told NHK that it was unable to function normally because of the power outage caused by the earthquake.

"It's become like a field hospital," the head of the hospital's administrative department said.

Another hospital in the city suspended new admissions after treating 86 people injured in the earthquake, including three with serious injuries, saying it could no longer handle additional emergency cases.

Several passengers travelling on high-speed trains at the time of the quake were also injured, railway operators said.

The most severe damage was reported at the Aeon mall, the largest shopping centre in the prefecture.

Images from the scene showed one side of the mall, which houses around 200 stores, blown away in the explosion, exposing steel beams and scattering debris across the parking area.

A spokesperson for Aeon said customers and employees had been evacuated immediately after the earthquake and that the cause of the subsequent explosion remained unknown.

Aeon shares fell 1.9% in early trade in Tokyo, while the benchmark index rose 0.8%.

Several major manufacturers, including semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron and Honda, said they would suspend operations at their facilities in the area through Wednesday.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, said it had evacuated workers from its local plant as a precaution immediately after the quake but began resuming operations late on Tuesday.

The earthquake also caused major damage to roads, with large cracks appearing on highways and disrupting traffic on Tuesday evening.

Japan lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a region known for frequent seismic activity, and accounts for about 20% of earthquakes measuring magnitude 6.0 or higher worldwide.

A powerful earthquake that struck Kumamoto a decade ago killed 275 people, injured another 2,739 and damaged thousands of buildings, including the walls of the city's historic castle, according to official figures.

(With inputs from Reuters)