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booksellers suspect AI firms behind bulk ordersEtna alert lowered as Catania airport reopensFuneral held for Indigenous girl whose death sparked outback riotsIran rejects US claim to Hormuz as ship attacks mount600 drones head for Moscow as Russia strikes Kyiv and Kryvyi RihDeath toll passes 50 after magnitude 7.7 quake off FloresIsraeli strikes kill 11 in south Lebanon, deadliest since June truceColombia asks Trump to suspend tariffs as quake toll climbsRhine hits record low at Kaub as Hungary sinks barges to cool reactorUS readies unprecedented economic measures against IranUS boat strikes pass 200 dead as Ecuadorean fishermen describe attacksBond traders struggle to price $70bn of credit backstops behind AI buildoutAlibaba says its open AI models passed three billion downloadsDeath toll rises to 68 after Lake Kariba ferry sinkingTaliban mark five years in power as UN warns of rights crisisEU aircraft join fight against Belgium's record wildfireUS presses Netanyahu over settlers as Qusra homes are occupiedMokha port halts operations as Houthi missiles hit MaribSeoul proposes talks to end the Korean war as North rejects drillsChina-led perovskite solar plant outperforms silicon in three-month field testOpenAI revenue run rate passes $40bn as revenue chief departsHamas leader in Cairo as Kushner trip nearsWHO says Congo's Ebola outbreak is outpacing the responseTurkish parliament passes amnesty law for PKK membersMorocco detains scores near Ceuta as feared mass crossing fails to materialiseChina publishes ecology reports to bolster South China Sea claimsMyanmar says more than 300,000 Rohingya verified for repatriationPetrobras detects signs of oil off the mouth of the AmazonChina condemns Japanese politicians' moves at Yasukuni ShrineUS inflation cools as wages again lag behind pricesModi offers free exam coaching after youth protests in IndiaOil from grounded Russian tanker reaches Oman's coastPanama Canal cuts draught again as Mexico pitches rival corridorUkraine's idle ports cost $1.75bn as farm exports fallFormer Chinese premier Zhu Rongji diesAt least 20 killed in communal clashes in central NigeriaIran accuses Qatar of holding three of its pilotsXi calls for shift to prevention as floods batter ChinaVenezuela frees 131 more political prisonersMore Syrians in Germany lose refugee protectionAudit finds gaps in Taiwan's counter-drone defencesIndia drafts rules to open nuclear power to private firmsHichilema takes early lead as Zambian count resumesParis prosecutors open investigation into tax portal hackReport details leverage behind Situational Awareness lossesArgentina has lost 30,633 companies under MileiAt least five dead in Indiana floodingIran detains two French diplomats over alleged infiltrationCanadian petition to expel US ambassador passes 170,000 signaturesIndia raises $50bn from its diaspora and ends swap facility earlyOpaque start-ups build erotic AI industry from Cyprus and MaltaBritain's biggest EV battery plant shelves expansion as Jaguar Land Rover talks stallThird drone debris find in a day on Turkish coastsForecasters put 95 percent odds on a very strong El NiñoSecondhand booksellers suspect AI firms behind bulk ordersEtna alert lowered as Catania airport reopensFuneral held for Indigenous girl whose death sparked outback riots
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Symbolic image: Strong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 deadSymbolic image

Strong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 dead

9 sources

A powerful earthquake struck Kumamoto prefecture on Japan's southern island of Kyushu on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 13 people and injuring hundreds. About an hour later an explosion tore through a shopping mall in the prefecture, and a factory chimney collapsed, leaving workers missing. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the search a race against time as more than 9,000 people spent the night in evacuation centres.

What happened

The quake struck at 4:27pm local time (0727 GMT) on Tuesday, with its epicentre roughly 20km south of Kumamoto city, a city of about 700,000 people; the USGS put it near the coastal town of Uto. The Japan Meteorological Agency measured magnitude 7.1 and the maximum level 7 on Japan's shindo intensity scale, while the USGS first reported 7.1 and later revised its estimate to 6.8. Authorities issued a tsunami warning of up to one metre for the Ariake and Yatsushiro bays and lifted it within two hours. At the Aeon mall near Kumamoto, which houses around 200 shops and had reopened in June after being rebuilt from the 2016 quakes, part of the second floor collapsed and an explosion followed about 40 to 60 minutes after the tremor; rescuers pulled eight people out, two women in their 20s were confirmed dead, and NHK reported 20 to 30 employees initially unaccounted for. Rescuers said they smelled gas, but a government spokesman said the cause of the blast had not been confirmed. A chimney collapsed at a Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro, roads, bridges and a wall section of the 17th-century Kumamoto Castle were damaged, around 48,000 households lost power and 140,000 lost water, and plant operator Kyushu Electric Power reported no irregularities at the Sendai and Genkai plants.

The view from outside

Gulf and Turkish outlets carrying AFP and Reuters copy, and Russia's TASS, foreground the industrial and nuclear consequences: reactor status, evacuated TSMC staff and shut Toyota, Honda and Daihatsu plants. Al Jazeera and Daily Sabah place the event in Japan's seismic record, noting the 2016 Kumamoto quakes that killed 273 people and the 2011 disaster at Fukushima. The National highlights the mall blast and eyewitness accounts from the surrounding streets rather than the state response.

What could happen next

By Wednesday morning the government counted 9,186 people in 506 evacuation centres across five prefectures, after about 300,000 residents had been told to leave their homes. Japan's Self-Defense Forces mobilised 3,600 personnel and 20 aircraft, a figure the defence side later put above 4,500 soldiers, with teams concentrating on the mall and the paper mill, where two workers were taken to hospital in cardiac arrest and nine remain missing. The JMA has recorded more than 60 aftershocks of magnitude 1 to 4 and warns of further strong quakes and landslides for about a week, while temperatures above 35C raise the risk of heatstroke for people without power or water. Authorities are investigating the suspected gas explosion, and companies are assessing plant damage, with TSMC saying its staff are safe and operations are resuming.

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