In Kumamoto, Tuesday afternoon began like any other. The Aeon Mall was doing what malls do: the aisles were filling up with the quiet noise of everyday life. People were shopping, and workers were ending their shifts. The ground then “turned into liquid” at 4:27 p.m. local time in one of Japan’s cities that gets hit by earthquakes a lot.
The earthquake happened on the island of Kyushu and was 7.1 on the Richter scale, according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency. The number was given by the US Geological Survey as 6.8. Seismologists say it can take days to close the gap as new information comes in. No matter how you look at it, this was a very strong earthquake. One hundred and eighteen earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or more happen around the world every year. When you land under a city, the numbers on the chart start to feel very real.
What came next at the Aeon Mall was even worse than the shaking. People who were there said they saw an explosion, smoke rising from the second floor, and then parts of the building just falling apart. A possible gas leak is still being looked into as the cause of the explosion, but the damage could be seen from a long way away: outside walls were torn apart, an awning was thrown across the parking lot, and emergency workers were setting up outside before the dust had even settled. Over 20 to 30 employees were still thought to be inside when it got dark. Phone contact had been lost. Four people were still alive when they were pulled out. Ten more people were still missing at the mall alone.
At the Yatsushiro Plant of Nippon Paper across the prefecture, a factory chimney had fallen down. Two workers were found having heart problems. Nine more were not there. These are the kinds of numbers that slowly add up in the hours following a disaster, before the whole picture becomes clear.
There’s no getting around the fact that Kumamoto has been here before. In April 2016, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit the same area. Two days later, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit the same area. Two of them killed 278 people in Kumamoto and the nearby prefecture of Oita. Some of those deaths weren’t caused by the shaking itself, but by the stress and physical damage of having to leave over and over again. One teacher from Britain who moved to Kumamoto in 2024 and called the people there “wary” in a specific way. People here know what it’s like to have a second earthquake in the same week.
The Kumamoto Castle is a building from the 1600s that had some of its outer walls taken down again on Tuesday. It had been partially fixed after 2016. Someone who saw it said, “It didn’t fall piece by piece.” “It all came crashing down at once.” The castle is now closed. More than 150 other buildings in the city are also open, including schools, community centers, a sports stadium with room for 15,000 people, and museums. The city has pretty much stopped.
Over 40,000 homes on Kyushu island lost power. Late into the night, both water and electricity went out in Hikawa town, which is about 25 kilometers south of Kumamoto City. One of the town hall’s two backup systems failed, so it was only using a partial emergency generator to keep running. The little things like these that don’t always make the news but make or break a recovery are critical.
Felix Umland, a German photography student staying in a hotel in Kagoshima, which is about 175 kilometers from the epicenter, spoke very clearly about what he saw and heard, which is something that no seismograph can quite do. His phone sent him a message. It was five seconds ago. The building then began to move. “It feels like the building beneath you turns into liquid,” he said. “The solid ground just suddenly turned into a mass that was moving.” That, from someone who wasn’t even in the area that was hit the hardest, tells you something about how big Tuesday’s earthquake really felt.
The prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, told rescue teams to work through the night because “human life comes first.” As of early Wednesday morning local time, the operation was still going on. Aerial footage showed workers in orange suits carefully moving through the darkened wreckage of the Aeon Mall. The meteorological service in Japan also told people to be careful. People remember the events of 2016, when there was an initial quake and then a bigger one two days later. It’s impossible to say if that pattern will happen again. But the warning doesn’t seem like a safety measure as much as it does like a lived institutional memory.
Under the search operation, there’s a more serious story: Japan’s preparedness systems, which are often praised as some of the best in the world, still couldn’t stop this kind of loss. Even though evacuation plans, buildings that can withstand earthquakes, and public alert systems were all in place and working, people are still missing. That’s not really a lack of preparation. Being ready is more of a reminder of what it is: the difference between a disaster and a catastrophe, not a guarantee against either.
