A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan's southern Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday, killing at least two people after an explosion tore through a shopping mall and another in a building collapse, while knocking out power to thousands of homes and rupturing roads across the region.
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The prefectural government said early on Wednesday that rescuers working at the scene overnight had taken eight people out of the Aeon Mall Kumamoto shopping centre, where the blast occurred following the quake.
Of those eight, two women in their 20s were confirmed dead, while one other person was reported to be in cardiopulmonary arrest. The five others were injured, but officials said their condition was not life-threatening.
Emergency fire rescue teams, police and Self-Defense Force personnel were working together at the scene overnight, concentrating search operations on areas of the building where calls for help had been received.
Speaking to reporters from her office in Tokyo on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said authorities were still assessing the full extent of the damage in the area, which was also 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.
Around 300,000 people were instructed to go to evacuation centres, while aftershocks continued to rumble in the area on Japan's southwestern island of Kyushu.
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'LIKE VOLCANIC ASH WAS FALLING'
One side of the mall, which houses around 200 stores, was torn away in the blast, exposing steel beams and strewing debris across a parking lot, footage showed.
A spokesperson for mall operator Aeon 8267.T said customers and employees were evacuated right after the initial quake and that the exact cause of the ensuing explosion was unclear. Authorities are investigating a possible gas explosion, broadcaster NTV reported.
Kazuya Tsurunaga told TBS he was stunned by the blast 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 3836.T factory, broadcaster 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.
BUILDINGS ON FIRE
Authorities were responding to multiple incidents where buildings had partially collapsed or had caught fire. One person died in a collapse in a town near the epicentre, TV Asahi reported.
Some roads were also badly damaged, with large cracks splintering major highways, snarling traffic. Rail services were suspended and flights grounded.
TSMC 2330.TW, the world's largest contract chipmaker, Sony 6758.T and Fujifilm 4901.T evacuated workers from their plants following the quake. TSMC said in a statement late Tuesday that its site was unaffected and operations were gradually resuming.
However, Tokyo Electron 8035.T, a semiconductor equipment maker, said it was suspending operations at its two factories in Kumamoto through Wednesday, while Honda 7267.T said it would also temporarily idle its motorcycle factory there.
The quake’s epicentre was about 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Kumamoto City, central Kyushu's largest city with a population of around 700,000.
Residents in the areas that felt the biggest tremors must be on alert for further strong quakes for about a week, as well as for the risk of landslides, an official for the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
NO IRREGULARITIES AT NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS
Located on 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.
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. Kumamoto Airport shut its runway, as airlines diverted and cancelled flights.
There were no irregularities reported at the nuclear power stations in the area, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
A massive earthquake in Kumamoto 10 years ago killed 275 people and injured a further 2,739, according to an official count, and damaged thousands of buildings including the walls of the city's castle, a top tourist site.
Authorities warned residents about the risk of heatstroke as temperatures were set to hit 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.
