Several people have been trapped following an explosion at the Aeon Mall shopping center, according to the Kumamoto Prefecture Fire Department on the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan, after a strong 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck, followed by a 6.1-magnitude aftershock, according to data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). Fuji TV reports that there are numerous fatalities among those trapped in the building, although there is no official confirmation of the deaths at this time.
The earthquake has also left at least 50 people injured, including some at the shopping center, and has cut power to approximately 40,000 households. The quake has also forced the temporary suspension of rail services, including the Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train. The Kyushu Railway Company itself has confirmed that a freight train derailed in the city of Yatsushiro in the southern part of the prefecture.
About 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centers, the Japanese disaster management agency announced.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated in Tokyo that the number of victims and the extent of the damage in the area — which was devastated by another earthquake a decade ago — were still being assessed. Takaichi also noted that “in some areas, there have been power outages and fires, and damage to roads and bridges has been reported, as well as the collapse of buildings.”
Japanese government spokesperson Minoru Kihara explained during a press conference that “given the number of areas without water supply, specific aid will be provided,” according to NHK television.
“We are using helicopters from the police, the fire department, and the military to assess the situation from the air and determine the extent of the damage. As soon as we can, we will report on this and take the necessary steps to assist the population,” Kihara stated.
Previously, authorities had urged the public to stay away from coastal areas as much as possible and emphasized that the earthquake’s intensity was 7 — the highest on the Japanese scale — in areas of Uki and Hikawa, while it reached level six in surrounding areas, according to reports from the Kyodo News Agency.
Authorities had initially issued a tsunami warning. That threat has now been downgraded, and there is considered to be no risk of a tsunami along the country’s coast, according to the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear agency, later confirmed that there is no damage or safety issues at the Sendai nuclear power plant, according to information provided by Japan’s nuclear regulatory authority.
“The IAEA will continue to monitor the situation,” the agency stated in a post on social media platform X.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the earthquake occurred at 4:27 p.m. local time, and its epicenter was located about 12 miles south of Kumamoto, the largest city on the central island of Kyushu, which has a population of about 700,000 people.
Explosion
Late in the afternoon in Japan, a fleet of fire trucks was still searching for people trapped in the rubble of the Aeon Mall shopping center. A spokesperson for the facility, located in the town of Hikawa, explained that the explosion occurred while customers and employees were being evacuated following the earthquake and that the exact cause of the incident was still unclear.
According to a statement from the Kumamoto Fire Department, the second floor of the building collapsed, trapping numerous people under the rubble. About 200 people managed to take refuge in the outdoor parking lot.
An employee at a nearby restaurant, identified by the TBS network as Kazuya Tsurunaga, said he heard the loud bang from inside his establishment, located about 300 meters away from the shopping center.
“It was a huge explosion,” he said. “A huge cloud of smoke rose, and since the wind was blowing toward the restaurant, the area around us looked as if it were under a shower of volcanic ash.”
Other buildings in the area were also on fire or partially collapsed, according to footage from NHK television, which also showed large cracks in major roads, including on a highway overpass.
Kyushu is Japan’s third-largest island and is home to two nuclear power plants: the Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture and the Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. Emergency earthquake alerts have been extended to other prefectures. In addition to Kumamoto, these include Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Saga, Oita, and Miyazaki, all of which are located on the island of Kyushu.
The Japanese archipelago is situated at the intersection of four tectonic plates and accounts for 10% of all the world’s earthquakes — or about 2,000 per year — according to the JMA. Situated along the so-called Ring of Fire — a chain of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partially surrounds that region of the Pacific Ocean — it accounts for about 20% of the world’s earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.0 or higher.
When an earthquake of this magnitude occurs, one of the main concerns in Japan is usually its nuclear power plants, especially since the accident at the Fukushima plant on March 11, 2011. That incident — the worst at a nuclear power plant since Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, now part of Ukraine — occurred after a magnitude 9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami.
Before the United Nations nuclear agency confirmed the findings following Tuesday’s earthquake, Kyushu Electric Power had stated that no abnormalities had been detected at its Sendai and Genkai nuclear power plants.
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