Death toll rises to 18 as rescuers comb through quake rubble in southwestern Japan

Soldiers and emergency workers are combing through a badly damaged shopping mall and collapsed houses looking for trapped survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 18 people in southwestern Japan

4 min readJul 29, 2026 02:02 PM IST Damaged cars in a parking lot at the Aeon Mall shopping centre, where an explosion occurred after an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 struck Japans southern Kumamoto prefecture, July 29, 2026. (REUTERS) A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Japan on Tuesday trigg

7.1-magnitude jolt rocked southern Japan on Tuesday

Soldiers and emergency workers combed through a badly damaged shopping mall and collapsed houses looking for trapped survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 13 people.

The death toll from Japan’s Kyushu island quake rises to 13.

Dozens more remain trapped underneath the rubble as authorities race against the clock to save as many people as possible during the critical 72 hour rescue period. The tremor is the most powerful to hit the region in 10 years since a 7.0 magnitude quake recorded in 2016.

KUMAMOTO, Japan, July 29 (Reuters) - A 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed at least 13 people near the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto and rescuers are frantically searching for survivors trapped beneath the rubble, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday.

Japan's southern prefecture of Kumamoto lives with the memory of a massive 2016 earthquake that killed hundreds.

Japan quake toll rises to 13 as rescuers haul people from collapsed mall  Reuters

Death toll rises to 13 as rescuers search for the missing after Japan earthquake  Toronto Star

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said 13 people have been found dead after a powerful quake shook part of southwestern Japan

Death toll rises to 13 as rescuers search for the missing after Japan earthquake  AP News

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