Death Toll Rises to 34 After Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Southern Japan

(WS News) – Rescuers in southern Japan are racing against time to find survivors after a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday, with the confirmed death toll climbing to 34 as of Thursday.

The earthquake struck at 4:27 p.m. local time on the southern island of Kyushu, triggering the highest possible level of shaking on Japan’s Shindo intensity scale. The most severe damage occurred at the Aeon Mall shopping center in the town of Kashima, which was crowded with roughly 3,000 customers when the quake hit. A gas explosion tore through another section of the mall after shoppers had been evacuated to the parking lot, collapsing part of the second floor and trapping workers inside; authorities said at least seven of the deaths were linked directly to that explosion.

Eight more people died after a chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries mill in the city of Yatsushiro, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government, which said an additional nine deaths remain under investigation as likely quake-related. The disaster knocked out power to nearly 34,900 homes and cut running water to some 15,000 households, while more than 8,800 residents sought shelter across upwards of 400 evacuation centers. Several hospitals near the epicenter reported being overwhelmed or unable to function normally due to power outages and a surge of injured patients.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency has officially designated the disaster the 2026 Kumamoto earthquake. The region was previously devastated by a pair of major earthquakes in 2016 that killed 273 people, and Kyushu’s location along the Japan Median Tectonic Line has long made it one of the country’s most seismically vulnerable regions. As the crucial 72-hour survival window for trapped victims passed, rescue teams continued working through the rubble in hopes of finding additional survivors.