TOKYO - A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan on Tuesday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some people trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall.
Speaking to reporters at her office in Tokyo, 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.
‘Like volcanic ash falling’
One hospital had reported more than 50 injuries, the public broadcaster NHK said. Several people on a high-speed train at the time of the quake were also injured, media reported.
Around 20 to 30 workers at the prefecture’s largest shopping mall were unaccounted for after it was rocked by an explosion in the aftermath of the quake, NHK said.
Police said “quite a few” people at the Aeon Mall were presumed dead in the incident, the 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 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.”
Multiple people were also unaccounted for after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory, NHK reported. (Story continues below)
Buildings on fire
Several other buildings were also on fire or partially collapsed. Aerial images taken by NHK showed elevated sections of the Kyushu Expressway had broken into two pieces, as other footage showed a partially collapsed wall at Kumamoto Castle, a landmark in the city’s heart.
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. A Sony spokesperson earlier said it was checking the situation.
The quake’s epicentre was about 20 kilometres south of Kumamoto, one of the largest cities on Kyushu island with a population of around 700,000.
Residents in the areas that felt the biggest tremors must beware of further strong quakes for about a week, as well as the risk of landslides, an official for the Japan Meteorological Agency said. (Story continues below)
Trains halted, airport closed
The Japanese government issued emergency earthquake warnings for Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, Saga, Oita and Miyazaki prefectures, all on Kyushu, the southernmost major island in the country. The JMA also initially issued a tsunami warning for a wave measuring 1 metre but later lifted it.
Kyushu Electric Power said that about 48,000 homes had lost power as a result of the quake, while the railway company JR Kyushu said that it had suspended services, including its high-speed bullet trains. Kumamoto airport also shut its runway, as airlines diverted and cancelled flights.
The telecoms operators KDDI and Docomo said there was disruption to their mobile phone services due to power shortages and transmission-line failures.
There were no irregularities reported at the nuclear power stations in the area, Japan’s nuclear regulation authority said.
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% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or more.
A massive earthquake in Kumamoto 10 years ago killed 275 people and injured a further 2,739, according to an official count.
