Death toll rises to 18 as rescuers comb through quake rubble in southwestern Japan

Damage is seen to part of the compound of the Shohinken gardens in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto prefecture, July 29, after an earthquake struck the area the day before. AFP-Yonhap

KUMAMOTO, Japan — Soldiers and emergency workers combed through a badly damaged shopping mall and collapsed houses looking for trapped survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 18 people, including a foreigner, in southwestern Japan.

The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit a day earlier in the Kumamoto area on the southern main island of Kyushu also left at least 62 people injured, six of them seriously, the prefectural government said. The tally has been steadily growing, fanning fears it may continue to rise.

The sweltering weather heightened worries about the survivors as rescuers braved the heat. It remained unclear how many people might still be missing.

Some of the most serious damage was at the Aeon Mall shopping center in Kashima city, which was bustling with thousands of people when the quake happened. The company said some 3,000 customers were evacuated to a parking lot before a gas explosion happened in another part of the mall, where some people were still working.

The mall’s second floor collapsed, trapping people. Witnesses said the explosion shook the area as much as the quake.

Three people remained missing, while four deaths were confirmed at the mall site, according to Aeon President Akio Yoshida.

“We take it seriously that an explosion happened and precious lives were lost,” Yoshida told a news conference in Kumamoto, where he bowed deeply along with two other executives.

Japanese media footage of the mall showed that part of the ceiling had caved in, and metal pieces and other debris were scattered about as helmeted and masked rescue workers searched the area.

A general view shows damage to part of the Aeon Mall Kumamoto in Kashima, Kumamoto prefecture, July 29, after an earthquake struck southwestern Japan the previous day. AFP-Yonhap

Kiyoshi Matsunaga, 74, who lives in the mall's neighborhood and was at a supermarket just a few blocks away, said he thought he was going to die.

He stopped in his tracks when the shaking began while he was pushing his cart toward a cash register. Things scattered from the shelves. He could not move, he recalled.

“I was frightened," he said.

In nearby Yatsushino, a chimney collapse at a Nippon Paper Industries factory killed five people while seven others were rescued from the debris, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government disaster team.

Four people were still believed to be trapped there, it said.

In the first reported death of a foreign national, a Vietnamese technical intern was killed after a crane fell on him at a factory where he worked, according to the Vietnamese government. He had arrived in Japan in January. Seven other Vietnamese technical interns at the factory evacuated safely

Separately, a Vietnamese woman married to one of the workers was injured when a wall collapsed and was being treated at a hospital.

Nearly 34,900 homes were still without electricity and some 15,000 homes without running water, Kumamoto officials said. More than 8,800 people left their homes to stay in over 400 shelters, where power sources were being added to provide air conditioning.

Aerial police footage showed some homes in residential areas were completely flattened, including a few that crumbled into a nearby river.

Japan's Self Defense Forces joined rescue workers in the search and rescue operations. Hundreds of professionals were helping with the effort, 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 said the federal government was preparing to deliver food and other necessities to hard-hit areas. She also offered her condolences to the victims and sympathy to their relatives, while urging those affected by the quake to take care of themselves under the hot weather.

Bullet train services remained suspended. Although operations at Aso Kumamoto Airport resumed Wednesday, some airlines canceled flights as a precautionary measure.

Kumamoto was hit with a deadly quake in 2016 that killed at least 50 people.

Children look at a section of a collapsed road in Hikawa town, Kumamoto prefecture, July 29, after an earthquake struck southwestern Japan the previous day. AFP-Yonhap

Some hospitals overstretched

One hospital in Uki city, near the epicentre, said a power outage caused by the earthquake meant it was unable to function.

"It's become like a field hospital," the head of the administrative department told NHK. Another hospital in the city said it had suspended admissions as it could no longer handle additional emergency cases after accepting 86 injured people following the quake, including three with serious injuries.

Several passengers aboard high-speed trains at the time of the quake were also injured, said operators, who immediately suspended all services after the jolt.

Some major companies with plants in the area, including Renesas Electronics, Sony, Tokyo Electron and Honda, have suspended operations at their plants. Toyota Motor also said it would suspend work at three factories outside Kumamoto prefecture through Friday in consideration of the situation at suppliers.

TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, evacuated workers from its local plant as a precaution after the quake but said it had begun resuming operations late on Tuesday.

Located on the "Ring of Fire" of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20 percent 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, and damaged thousands of buildings including the walls of the city's castle, a top tourist site.

The castle was also among several historic buildings damaged in Tuesday's quakes alongside shrines with heavy tiled roofs that partially collapsed and a 17th-century tea house.