Death toll in Japan earthquake rises to 34 amid sweltering heat

The number of deaths has risen to 43 after a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern Japan on Tuesday.

Authorities confirmed this on Thursday as rescuers continued to find survivors of the earthquake that hit Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyushu Island, causing widespread damage to houses and power lines.

According to the authorities, several people died after part of a shopping center collapsed and an explosion ripped through the mall about an hour later.

Thousands of displaced residents are now staying in evacuation centers—though the challenge is to keep them cool and hydrated as the region battles sweltering heat.

Officials urged survivors and rescuers to take precautions against heatstroke as the forecast revealed that temperatures could reach 39°C in the prefecture in the coming days.

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Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, announced on Wednesday the delivery of 300 air conditioners to Kumamoto, with 150 of the units bound for evacuation centers.

He said around 9,000 displaced residents have been put up in evacuation centers, and more than 30,000 households were out of power as of Wednesday.

The BBC reported that Yukiya Sanoue, who works at one of the centers, said heat stroke was the biggest concern at his facility, which hosts about 1,000 people. About 30% of the people at his evacuation center are senior citizens.

He said their electricity and water supplies had stopped since the earthquake, adding that the center had been without air conditioning until Wednesday afternoon when they received a generator.

“Quite a few people are suffering from conditions similar to heatstroke, and several have been taken to the hospital,” he said.

More than 100 aftershocks have been recorded since the initial quake, and many have taken to sleeping in their cars for fear of further tremors.

According to the BBC, thousands of personnel have been deployed for search-and-rescue operations. Many are digging through rubble at Kashima’s Aeon shopping centre, one of the worst-hit buildings, where a portion of the second floor collapsed.

The mall was also rocked by an explosion about an hour after the initial quake.

The president of Aeon said it was “very likely” a gas explosion, though the cause of the blast remains under investigation.

A cat cafe inside the mall said on Wednesday that its 25 cats, which had been left behind during the chaos of the quake, had all since been safely rescued.

The quake that hit Aeon Mall in Kumamoto had just reopened last month as a revamped shopping complex. It had previously been damaged during a series of strong earthquakes in April 2016, which killed 278 people in the region.

Rescuers were also combing a Nippon Paper factory in Yatsushiro city, where at least five people have died after the factory partially collapsed during the quake.

Eleven people were trapped in the building, seven of whom have been rescued so far, Nippon Paper said in a statement on Wednesday.

The quake, which had a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles), shocked residents across Kumamoto.

Hiroko Ogata, a 75-year-old restaurant owner in the city of Yatsushiro, told the BBC she hid under a table at her restaurant when the quake struck and swayed violently along with it.

“I have lived here for 75 years, but I have never experienced such a big quake,” she said. “I thought I would die.”

BBC