Beneath the fractured concrete and shattered timber of southern Japan, the clock is ticking as rescue workers continue their search for survivors after Tuesday’s powerful earthquake left widespread devastation, with buildings collapsed, roads severely damaged and emergency teams digging through rubble.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, said rescue workers faced a “race against time” to reach more people still trapped in rubble. “We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can,” she said.
Reports indicated that eight people were pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed Aeon Shopping Centre near the city of Kumamoto following an apparent explosion that occurred around an hour after the earthquake, and Aeon said four workers at the Shopping Centre remained unaccounted for.
“I thought a bomb had gone off,” Takateru Sonoda, 41, who runs a hair salon and cafe near the shopping centre, told the Japanese Jiji Press News Agency, adding: “There were people calling on others to evacuate and sirens were ringing out. Nearby roads were gridlocked, it was a state of panic.”
Seven people are also still missing at the Nippon Paper Industries factory where a chimney collapsed on to the site. Japan’s Mainichi newspaper reported that four people were rescued from the rubble at the paper mill, including two who were seriously injured.
Nearly 37,000 homes were still without electricity, 9,500 homes were without gas and communication networks were not working in some areas, chief government spokesperson Minoru Kihara told reporters, adding that more than 9,000 people left their homes to stay in more than 500 shelters.
Meanwhile, an Aeon spokesperson said customers and employees were evacuated after the initial quake and the cause of the explosion remained unclear. This is a government official told reporters that Aeon Kumamoto reported a gas leak, though the cause had not yet been determined.
Already, the Japanese military has mobilised 3,600 personnel for disaster relief operations and sent 20 aircraft to assess the damage from the air, the Defence Minister said, adding that hundreds of first responders from neighbouring prefectures arrived in the affected areas on Tuesday evening.
On its part, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned that areas with the biggest tremors would remain at risk of further strong quakes and landslides for about a week because the shallow earthquake was triggering seismic activity in the area.
By Wednesday morning more than 60 aftershocks had been recorded, ranging in magnitude from 1 to 4, the agency said. A tsunami warning was issued immediately after the quake, but was lifted within two hours.
Nearly 50,000 households were without power late on Tuesday, along with 140,000 without water. Temperatures in the region were forecast to top 35C on Wednesday, with high humidity increasing the chance of heatstroke for those without access to air conditioning and water. Large numbers of people slept in their cars overnight out of fear of aftershocks.
