Japan ends rescue at quake-hit shopping centre after explosion kills 7

Japan’s Kumamoto prefectural government said on Saturday it has ended rescue operations at an Aeon shopping centre where seven workers died in an explosion shortly after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the southwestern Japan prefecture four days earlier.

Officials said there should be no more people unaccounted for after local police and firefighters, joined by the Self-Defence Forces and others, searched the shopping centre in Kashima. Its second floor collapsed in a possible gas explosion after about 200 people had been evacuated following Tuesday afternoon’s earthquake.

Across the prefecture, 36 people, including those at the shopping centre, were killed in the quake and 11 were seriously injured. Efforts to restore water and other infrastructure are continuing, with some 69,400 households still without water amid scorching heat.

According to the prefecture, more than 9,000 people were evacuated as 3,429 houses were damaged, including 181 destroyed, in the temblor, which registered the maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale in Uki and Hikawa.

Many evacuees are staying in their cars with the air conditioning running and have faced petrol shortages, with long queues forming at gas stations. The central government said it has asked petroleum wholesalers to increase deliveries to Kumamoto, with supplies expected to reach four times the prefecture’s usual level.