Powerful earthquake hits Japan, several feared dead in shopping mall blast

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southern Kumamoto prefecture on Tuesday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall.

The tremor was centred around Kumamoto prefecture, about 900 kilometres from central Tokyo, and hit at an extremely shallow depth of 10km, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

Around 20 to 30 workers at the Aeon mall, the prefecture’s largest shopping centre, were unaccounted for after it was rocked by an explosion in the aftermath of the quake, broadcaster NHK said. Fire services earlier said multiple people were trapped inside.

Local news outlets quoted police saying several had died or were presumed to have perished in the incident, although Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.

Authorities said they were responding to multiple incidents where buildings had partially collapsed or had caught fire. One person died in one such collapse in a town near the epicentre, TV Asahi reported.

Multiple people were also unaccounted for after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory, NHK reported, while two hospitals were each reported to be treating more than 50 people, some in serious condition. Several passengers aboard high-speed trains at the time of the quake were also injured, operators said.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said she had received some initial reports of injuries.

Speaking to reporters at her office in Tokyo, 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,” she 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 3600 soldiers would be deployed to help with the disaster recovery as aftershocks continued to rumble.

The quake’s maximum seismic intensity was estimated at 7 on a Japanese scale of 7. Shaking of that intensity makes it impossible to stand, according to the JMA. An initial quake just before 4.30pm Japan time was followed by a series of aftershocks in the same region.

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 300 metres 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.”

The Aeon mall had just reopened last month as a new and improved shopping and entertainment complex to commemorate its recovery from a deadly tremor a decade ago.

The mall was so badly damaged in the magnitude 7.3 Kumamoto earthquake in April 2016 that it had to close for months and rebuild over even longer periods. As it went through a 2017 redevelopment and expansion, the mall highlighted its seismically reinforced ceilings and overall improvements to safety and resilience.

Rail operator JR Kyushu stopped all its services, while Kumamoto airport’s runway was closed for safety checks, with no time set for re-opening. Power outages were reported at some 7-Eleven stores in Kumamoto, while NTT Docomo experienced disruptions to mobile services.

No irregularities were reported at nuclear power facilities, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing said it evacuated staff at its Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing facility. TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for Nvidia and Apple operates a factory in Kumamoto prefecture, with a second facility under construction.

Sony Group produces image sensors in Kyushu that are used in smartphones, while Tokyo Electron makes chip tools and advanced packaging equipment in the region.

Chip making in particular is highly sensitive to physical shocks or disruptions in power and processes, and minor hiccups can sometimes destroy whole batches of valuable product.

Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes. Located along the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 per cent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or more.

A tsunami warning was issued immediately after Tuesday’s quake, but was later lifted.

Kyushu Electric Power said 48,000 homes had lost power as a result of the latest quake, while railway company JR Kyushu said that it had suspended services, including its high-speed bullet trains.

A massive earthquake in Kumamoto 10 years ago killed 275 people and injured a further 2739, according to an official count, and damaged thousands of buildings including the city’s castle, a top tourist site.

Some portions of the stone walls at the castle also collapsed as a result of Tuesday’s quake, an official at the castle’s office said.

Reuters, with Bloomberg

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