Japan quake death toll reaches 35; search continues at collapsed mall with rescue dogs amid heat wave
Rescuers used sniffer dogs on Friday to search the collapsed Aeon Mall in Kashima, where seven workers died in a post-quake explosion, as the confirmed toll from Tuesday's magnitude 7.1 quake in Kumamoto prefecture climbed to 35.
Quake strikes Kumamoto
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake, measured by Japan's Meteorological Agency, struck at 4:27 p.m. local time on Tuesday, 28 July 2026, with its epicentre in the city of Uki, just south of Kumamoto city, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres. The tremor registered the maximum intensity of 7 on Japan's Shindo scale, causing violent shaking across the southern island of Kyushu. A tsunami advisory was issued shortly afterwards and lifted within two hours, as no significant waves materialised. A strong aftershock of magnitude 6.1 followed, and the agency warned that seismic activity could continue for about a week, with the possibility of further quakes reaching the same maximum intensity, as well as a heightened risk of landslides.
- Magnitude 7.1 quake strikes Uki, Kumamoto; tsunami advisory issued
- Gas explosion devastates Aeon Mall in Kashima, about an hour after the quake
- Tsunami advisory lifted; Aso Kumamoto Airport reopens
- Death toll reaches 18; rescue operations continue at collapsed sites
- Toll rises to 34; 10,500 evacuees in shelters; prefecture reports at least 86 injured
- Toll climbs to 35; search with dogs continues at mall; 79,000 homes without water
Deadliest sites: the Aeon Mall and Nippon Paper plant
Two locations accounted for nearly half the deaths. At the Aeon Mall Kumamoto in the town of Kashima, about 3,000 shoppers were evacuated to the car park when the quake hit, but about an hour later a gas explosion tore through a part of the building where employees were still working. The second floor collapsed, trapping people under the debris. Twelve people have been pulled from the rubble; seven died and five were injured. Rescue workers with specially trained dogs continued to comb the site on Friday to ensure no one remained inside.
I thought a bomb had gone off.
At the Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro, a tall chimney toppled, burying workers. Eleven people were extracted, nine of them dead and two survivors. The search at that site has concluded. Elsewhere, a Vietnamese technical intern was killed when a crane fell on him at his factory, the first reported death of a foreign national in the disaster.
- Aeon Mall Kashima
- 7 people
- Nippon Paper Yatsushiro
- 9 people
- Other locations
- 19 people
Damage across the prefecture
The quake destroyed or damaged more than 800 houses in the town of Hikawa alone, out of about 4,500 homes, and officials counted at least 1,354 emergency calls to fire departments, including 393 requests for dispatches to fires and other incidents. Roads ruptured and bridges were damaged. In Uki city, near the epicentre, a hospital lost power and its administrative head told NHK it had "become like a field hospital"; another hospital suspended admissions after receiving 86 injured people, three in serious condition. Aso Kumamoto Airport closed its runway immediately after the quake, but reopened the same evening and was operating again the next day, though some airlines cancelled flights as a precaution.
Heat wave compounds the crisis
A punishing heat wave swept across Kyushu, with temperatures reaching 35 °C on Thursday and forecast to hit 36 °C on Friday, with the weekend possibly seeing 40 °C. The heat complicated rescue efforts and raised fears of heatstroke among those displaced. About 10,500 people were housed in 415 emergency shelters, many in school gymnasiums without air conditioning. The army airlifted 300 air conditioning units into the region, but many shelters still lacked cooling.
Government response and numbers
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the government was practising "proactive aid", pre-positioning food, water, toilet paper and electric vehicles before local authorities requested them. As of Friday, some 4,600 members of the Self-Defence Forces, 2,000 police officers and 1,410 firefighters were deployed. Around 4,500 homes remained without electricity, while the water shortages were far worse: 79,000 households had no running water.
There are still people waiting to be rescued and every minute counts.
A region on seismic fault lines
The Kumamoto region sits on major tectonic faults, including the Hinagu and Futagawa fault zone, which caused the deadly 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes that killed 273 people and injured more than 2,800. Japan lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences frequent seismic activity, with strict building codes designed to reduce casualties. Still, the shallow depth of Tuesday's quake produced intense surface shaking, triggering landslides and the secondary explosion at the mall.
