Rescue efforts are continuing as time runs down on the critical three-day window for rescues following the quake. Officials have not detailed how many people were reported missing but local media say dozens remain unaccounted for.
Residents of Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto were struggling to get their lives back to normal on Thursday, two days after a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake set off an explosion at a mall, toppled a factory chimney and flattened homes, killing at least 30 people in the process, as search and rescue efforts continue.
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Time was running out to find survivors, as rescuers continued to work in Kumamoto on Japan ’s southern main island of Kyushu, where the powerful tremor hit on Tuesday.
The number of those missing was unclear. The quake left at least 63 people injured, five of them seriously, according to representatives of Kumamoto’s prefectural government.
Survivors spoke about coming home and desperately pulling family members out of the wreckage. Some had suffered injuries and were rushed to the hospital.
Thousands of people spent another night at evacuation centres set up throughout the area in gymnasiums and other big spaces. Some homes were still without water or electricity, while others were simply afraid to go back.
Although Japan boasts strict building codes because of the frequency of quakes, many of them exceeding 7 magnitude, some homes in the area are in the older style of Japanese housing, making them relatively fragile to tremors.
The most serious damage was at the Aeon Mall shopping centre in the town of Kashima, which was bustling with thousands of people when the quake struck in the late afternoon on Tuesday local time.
The company said some 3,000 customers were evacuated to a parking lot before the explosion happened in another part of the mall, where some people were still working. The mall’s second floor collapsed, trapping people underneath the rubble.
As of early Thursday, six people were confirmed to have died at the mall site among the 11 people pulled out of the debris, according to officials in Kumamoto.
Family members of those still missing were still helplessly wandering near the wrecked mall on Thursday, waiting for any updates on their loved ones, despite the sweltering weather.
In the Yatsushiro area, where a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries factory, 10 people were rescued, but eight others died, and one remained unaccounted for.
Nearly 23,000 homes were still without electricity and more than 10,000 people were staying in the roughly 400 shelters set up by the government, where power sources were being added to provide air conditioning as a dire heatwave grips parts of the country.