KUMAMOTO
Rescuers were frantically searching on Wednesday for survivors of a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that shook southern Japan, killing at least 13 people, knocking out power to thousands of homes and rupturing roads across the region.
Eight people were pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed shopping mall near the city of Kumamoto that was torn apart by an apparent explosion about an hour after Tuesday’s earthquake, among them two dead women in their 20s.
Around 20 to 30 mall workers were unaccounted for on Tuesday, public broadcaster NHK said.
“Even now, there are people waiting to be rescued, and this is a race against time. We will marshal all available resources on the ground to save and rescue as many people as possible,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo.
Authorities are investigating a possible gas explosion at the Aeon mall, media reported. Rescuers reported smelling gas inside the building but the cause of the incident was still under investigation, Japan’s top government spokesperson Minoru Kihara said.
