Kumamoto, en.SERU.co.id – The death toll from Tuesday’s powerful earthquake in southwestern Japan has risen to 34. Local authorities in Kumamoto Prefecture confirmed the latest figure on Thursday.
According to the prefectural disaster management office, seven bodies were recovered from the wreckage of Aeon Mall in Kashima, where an explosion caused part of the building to collapse about an hour after the magnitude 7.1 quake. Another eight people died at a Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro after a chimney toppled onto the site.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the death toll had reached 30, including cases still under investigation to determine whether they were directly linked to the disaster.
“The number of deaths now stands at 30, including those under review,” she said during a meeting of the emergency response headquarters.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara had reported a figure of 28 earlier Thursday morning.
“Rescue efforts are truly a race against time,” he told reporters in Tokyo.
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Search teams continued working through the rubble at both the mall and the paper mill under difficult conditions. Intense summer heat and ongoing aftershocks continued to hamper rescue efforts. Japan’s meteorological agency has recorded more than 250 tremors since the main quake and warned that strong shaking could still occur in the coming days.
Nearly 10,000 people remained in more than 400 evacuation shelters across the prefecture. Power outages were still affecting around 23,000 households, and water supplies remained disrupted in several areas.
