Rescue efforts continue
Search and rescue teams remained deployed across Kumamoto on Friday, focusing on the collapsed Aeon Mall Kumamoto shopping centre and other heavily damaged locations as the critical 72-hour rescue window drew to a close.
Officials said seven people rescued from the shopping mall later died, while five others were injured. The explosion, believed to have been caused by a gas leak about 80 minutes after the earthquake, remains under investigation.
At another severely damaged site, a smokestack collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro City. Eleven people trapped inside were rescued, but nine later died.
Hundreds of aftershocks have been recorded since the main quake, while emergency crews continue to assess the full extent of the destruction and search for anyone who may still be trapped beneath collapsed structures.
Japan, one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes measuring magnitude 6.0 or greater.
