Japan quake toll hits 34 as survivors struggle amid heat

Japanese emergency workers yesterday searched tirelessly for survivors at a wrecked shopping mall, as the death toll from a major earthquake hit 34 and tens of thousands were left without power in punishing heat. The Kumamoto disaster management office issued the new tally for Tuesday’s quake, with seven bodies extracted from the mass of rubble, steel and wires of the Aeon shopping mall after a suspected gas blast. Eight people were also confirmed dead at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro, where part of a red-and-white smokestack collapsed, the office said. Workers walk past a damaged house in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, on Wednesday, after an earthquake struck southwestern Japan the previous day. Photo: AFP Five others were in a critical condition after the mag