Gas explosion at mall and chimney collapse at factory leave multiple missing after magnitude 7.1 quake

The most severe structural damage occurred at the Aeon Mall shopping center in Kashima city, where a gas explosion occurred after the earthquake. The mall’s second floor collapsed, trapping people inside. Aeon President Akio Yoshida told a news conference that four people were confirmed dead at the site and three others remained missing. About 3,000 customers were evacuated to a parking lot before the explosion, the company said. Witnesses described the blast as shaking the area as much as the quake.

In nearby Yatsushiro, a chimney collapse at a Nippon Paper Industries factory killed five workers and seven others were rescued from the debris, the Kumamoto prefectural government disaster team reported. Four more people were believed to still be trapped there.

The Vietnamese government said a Vietnamese technical intern was killed when a crane fell on him at his factory. He had arrived in Japan in January. Seven other Vietnamese technical interns evacuated safely from the same workplace, and a Vietnamese woman married to one of the workers was injured by a collapsing wall and hospitalized.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces joined rescue workers in searching for survivors, with hundreds of professionals assisting, including firefighters from Taiwan. “There are people who are still waiting to be rescued, and it’s a race against time,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said. “We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can.” Takaichi added that the federal government was preparing to deliver food and other necessities to hard-hit areas and urged those affected to take precautions in the hot weather.

The quake left nearly 34,900 homes without electricity and about 15,000 without running water, Kumamoto officials said. More than 8,800 residents fled their homes to stay in over 400 shelters, where authorities were adding power sources to provide air conditioning. Aerial police footage showed some homes completely flattened, with a few collapsing into a nearby river.

Bullet train services in the region remained suspended. Although operations at Aso Kumamoto Airport resumed Wednesday, some airlines canceled flights as a precaution. Kumamoto was struck by a deadly quake in 2016 that killed at least 50 people. Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone nations in the world.