Tokyo, en.SERU.co.id – The death toll from Tuesday’s powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake in southwestern Japan has risen to at least 13, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi confirmed Wednesday morning. By later Wednesday, some international media reported the death toll had risen to as many as 18 as rescue operations continued.
“Even now, there are people waiting to be rescued, and this is a race against time. We will marshal all available resources on the ground to save and rescue as many people as possible,” Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo.
The quake struck at 4:27 p.m. local time on July 28 near the city of Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu. It registered the maximum intensity of 7 on Japan’s seismic scale in parts of the prefecture, the strongest shaking recorded in the country since the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake.
Ongoing Rescue Efforts at Key Sites
Two locations have drawn the most intense rescue operations. At Aeon Mall in Kashima, the second floor partially collapsed after an explosion, believed to have been triggered by a gas leak, roughly an hour after the main shock. Eight people were pulled from the wreckage; two women in their 20s were among the dead. Mall executives later confirmed that several staff members remained unaccounted for.
In the nearby city of Yatsushiro, a chimney at a Nippon Paper Industries plant toppled onto the factory floor. Officials said several workers remained trapped beneath the collapsed structure. At least four were rescued, some in critical condition, while others were still missing as of Wednesday afternoon.
Houses collapsed, fires broke out, and roads and bridges sustained damage across the hardest-hit areas. Around 37,000 households were still without power by Wednesday, and thousands of residents remained in evacuation shelters. Bullet train services on the Kyushu Shinkansen line between Kumamoto and Kagoshima stayed suspended.
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Japan’s meteorological agency recorded 169 aftershocks that people could feel by Wednesday morning, including several of moderate intensity. Officials warned that strong tremors could continue for about a week, particularly in the next two to three days, and urged residents to stay alert for landslides.
Among the confirmed victims was a Vietnamese worker. Japan’s foreign ministry and the Indonesian embassy in Tokyo both reported that no Indonesian nationals were among the casualties.
Search operations involving the Self-Defense Forces, firefighters, and police were still underway late Wednesday. Authorities cautioned that the death toll could rise further as teams continue clearing debris from collapsed buildings and the damaged factory.
The region was last hit by a major earthquake of similar intensity in 2016. This latest disaster has once again tested Japan’s well-practiced emergency response systems under the pressure of extreme summer heat and ongoing seismic activity.
