At 4:27 p.m. local time on 28 July 2026, an earthquake struck Kumamoto Prefecture on Japan's Kyushu island, triggering fires, building collapses, a freight train derailment, and the evacuation of more than 150,000 people to shelters. The most serious single incident involved the partial collapse of the second floor of an Aeon shopping mall in the town of Kashima — also referred to in some reports as Kahima — where an explosion and white smoke were reported as approximately 200 people evacuated to the car park outside.
The magnitude of the earthquake remains inconsistent across sources. Several outlets, including DW, The Independent, and CGTN, reported a magnitude of 7.1, while the New York Times reported 6.8. No authoritative reconciliation of those figures had been published at the time of reporting. The Japan Meteorological Agency and the United States Geological Survey placed the epicentre near Uto, a coastal city approximately 30 miles from Kumamoto city, at a shallow depth of approximately 10 kilometres.
Police told Japanese broadcaster TBS that 'quite a few' people were presumed dead in connection with the mall incident. NHK reported that 'many people' remained trapped inside the structure. No official confirmed death toll had been released. At least 50 people were hospitalised across the prefecture, among them roughly ten residents of a care home and several passengers on a high-speed train.
The cause of the explosion at the Aeon mall was not known at the time of reporting. The full extent of structural damage to the building, and the number of people requiring rescue from within it, also remained unclear.
At least seven fires broke out across the prefecture, the majority in Kumamoto city. At least twelve houses were recorded as having collapsed, and a freight train derailed. Approximately 45,000 to 48,000 households lost power. More than 30 aftershocks were recorded within two hours of the initial tremor, and the JMA warned that strong aftershocks should be expected in the coming days.
Tsunami advisories were issued for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas following the earthquake and were subsequently lifted at approximately 6:10 p.m. local time. No abnormalities were reported at three nearby nuclear power plants, including the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. In Japan, the swift confirmation of nuclear plant status following significant seismic events has been standard practice since the Fukushima disaster of 2011.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi confirmed that injuries, infrastructure damage, and fires had occurred and instructed government ministries to assess the situation and respond. The full scope of damage to roads, bridges, and utilities across the prefecture was not yet established.
Kumamoto Prefecture suffered a significant seismic sequence in April 2016, when a magnitude-6.5 foreshock and a magnitude-7.3 main shock struck the same region within two days of each other, killing at least 32 people, injuring nearly 2,000, and forcing more than 90,000 to evacuate. The 2016 events caused severe damage to Kumamoto Castle and broad infrastructure destruction across the area.
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