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Workers walk past a damaged house and partially collapsed in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto prefecture on July 29, 2026, after an earthquake struck southwestern Japan the previous day. [AFP]
Japanese emergency workers battled Thursday to find survivors from a wrecked shopping mall, as the death toll from a major earthquake two days earlier hit 34 and thousands sweltered in punishing heat.
The Kumamoto disaster management office issued the new tally, with seven bodies now extracted from the mass of rubble, steel and wires of the Aeon shopping mall after a suspected gas blast following Tuesday's quake.
Eight people were also confirmed dead at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro city, where part of a red-and-white smokestack collapsed, according to the office.
