The Japan Fire and Disaster Management Agency informed AFP that among the victims were 2 women at a shopping center and 3 others in other places in the Kumamoto area, where the 7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred on July 28. Also in the earthquake, 7 others were seriously injured.
The commercial center in Kashima was destroyed in a gas explosion, causing ceilings and walls to collapse, a government source revealed to Kyodo news agency.
The explosion occurred after customers and staff were evacuated," a spokesman for Aeon, the operator of the shopping center, told AFP.
8 people were rescued from this shopping center, including 5 injured, a local official shared with AFP.
Previously, initial information determined that 20-30 people were trapped inside the collapsed shopping center. However, NHK quoted local police on the morning of July 29 as stating that this number was lower.
The exact number of people trapped has not been determined. There are definitely employees trapped, but it is not clear whether any of them are local people" - NHK quoted local police as saying.
Police noted that no safe entrance to the shopping center has been found, meaning it is still unavailable to access.
At the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro, 1 chimney partially collapsed and 9 people went missing.
Across Kumamoto, 36,880 households and facilities lost power on the morning of July 29. Kumamoto recorded 2 earthquakes in 2 days in 2016, killing 273 people.
The strong earthquake occurred at 4:27 pm on July 29 and was measured by the US Geological Survey (USGS) at a magnitude of 6.8 at a depth of 10km. The earthquake caused many fires, collapsing buildings, damaging roads and bridges, including a part of the pedestrian bridge collapsing into the river and overturning a freight train.
Images verified by AFP show heavy vehicles, street lights and traffic lights shaking. In other places, vehicles on the 2-lane road were seen cautiously moving through sidewalks that were displaced after the earthquake. Security cameras shook violently. Images also showed part of the wall at the ancient Kumamoto Castle, hundreds of years old, collapsing.
Many roads were closed and Shinkansen high-speed train services were temporarily suspended in the area. Kumamoto Airport was closed for several hours before reopening on the evening of July 28.
The Japanese Defense Minister said that 3,600 soldiers were mobilized for disaster relief operations and 20 aircraft were deployed to assess damage from the air.
Japan is one of the countries with the strongest seismic activity in the world, located on 4 large craters along the western edge of the Pacific "Fire Belt".
Japan often records hundreds of earthquakes each year and accounts for about 18% of the total number of earthquakes in the world.
Most earthquakes in Japan are mild, with different levels of damage, depending on the location and depth of the earthquake.
