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JIJI Press / AFP via Getty ImagesThe number of people who have died after a powerful earthquake hit southwestern Japan has risen to 30, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Thursday.
Rescuers are still working to find survivors after the magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit Kumamoto prefecture on Kyushu island on Tuesday, causing widespread damage to houses and power lines.
Several people died after part of a shopping centre collapsed and an explosion ripped through the mall about an hour later.
Thousands of displaced residents are now staying in evacuation centres – though the challenge is to keep them cool and hydrated as the region battles sweltering heat.
Temperatures could reach 39C in the prefecture in the coming days, according to forecasts, with officials urging survivors and rescuers to take precautions against heatstroke.
On Wednesday, Japan’s defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi announced the delivery of 300 air conditioners to Kumamoto, with 150 of the units bound for evacuation centres.
Around 9,000 displaced residents have been put up in evacuation centres, and more than 30,000 households were out of power as of Wednesday.
More than 100 aftershocks have been recorded since the initial quake, and many have taken to sleeping in their cars for fear of further tremors.
Thousands of personnel have been deployed for search-and-rescue operations. Many are digging through rubble at Kashima’s Aeon shopping centre, one of the worst-hit buildings where a portion of the second floor collapsed.
The mall was also rocked by an explosion about an hour after the initial quake.
The president of Aeon said it was “very likely” a gas explosion, though the cause of the blast remains under investigation.
A cat cafe inside the mall said on Wednesday that its 25 cats, which had been left behind during the chaos of the quake, had all since been safely rescued.
The quake-hit Aeon mall in Kumamoto had just reopened last month as a revamped shopping complex. It had previously been damaged during a series of strong earthquakes in April 2016, which killed 278 people in the region.
Rescuers were also combing a Nippon Paper factory in Yatsushiro city, where at least five people have died after the factory partially collapsed during the quake.
Eleven people were trapped in the building, seven of whom have been rescued so far, Nippon Paper said in a statement on Wednesday.
The quake, which had a shallow depth of 10km (six miles), shocked residents across Kumamoto.
Hiroko Ogata, a 75-year-old restaurant owner in the city of Yatsushiro, told the BBC she hid under a table at her restaurant when the quake struck and swayed violently along with it.
“I have lived here for 75 years, but I have never experienced such a big quake,” she said. “I thought I would die.”
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