At around 4.27pm on 28 July, an earthquake with a provisional magnitude of 7.1 struck, with its epicentre in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. A seismic intensity of 7 was recorded in the city of Uki and the town of Hikawa, both in Kumamoto Prefecture, while Minami Ward in Kumamoto city, the prefectural capital, recorded an intensity of 6 upper. Kumamoto lies in the central-western part of Kyushu, an island in the west of Japan.
The seismic intensity scale defined by the Japan Meteorological Agency has ten levels, of which 7 is the strongest. Levels 5 and 6 are each divided into “lower” and “upper” grades, so the 6 upper recorded in Minami Ward is the second-strongest reading on the scale.
Twelve deaths have so far been confirmed as a result of the earthquake.
Damage to businesses
The most prominent foreign-owned company with a base in Kumamoto is TSMC, the semiconductor manufacturing giant. All of its employees have been confirmed safe. Kikuyo, the town where its plant is located, recorded a seismic intensity of 5 upper, the fourth-strongest reading on the scale.
Among Japanese companies, workers were trapped at Nippon Paper Industries’ Yatsushiro mill. Five of those pulled from the site have since died, and four more remain unaccounted for. A chimney at the same mill also snapped.
Explosion at a shopping mall
Elsewhere, an explosion occurred after the earthquake at Aeon Mall Kumamoto, a shopping centre in the town of Kashima in Kumamoto Prefecture. Three deaths have been confirmed, with one further person in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest — the term Japanese authorities use for casualties who show no vital signs but have not yet been formally certified dead — and three unaccounted for. Those taken from the mall by ambulance are said to include both staff and shoppers.
Photographs and video of the scene at the mall, showing a building reduced to little more than its skeletal frame, have been broadcast repeatedly by Japanese media and circulated on social media.
The 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes produced tremors of intensity 7 on more than one occasion, and there are fears that aftershocks or further large earthquakes could follow this time as well. Emergency earthquake bulletins, apparently for aftershocks of this week’s quake, have indeed been running repeatedly on television. When an earthquake strikes, safety must come first — taking cover under a table, for instance.
