Incredible footage has emerged of hospital staff in Japan attempting to shield a patient as last month’s 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck midway through a surgery. The newly released vision shows the operating theatre violently shaking as the quake is felt. Trolleys and equipment slide around the room as lights swing wildly from side to side.A surgeon appears to use their body to protect the patient whose abdomen was being operated on, before another person quickly follows suit and grabs the other side of the bed. A third person runs to the head of the bed and disappears from sight, seemingly going to ground as they try to keep the bed steady.The CCTV shows two other staff members being thrown to the floor by the violence of the tremor.The incident occurred at Kumamoto General Hospital, on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan, which said four surgeries were taking place when the powerful earthquake struck at 4.26pm.It said the surgeries continued after the incident and were all completed successfully.The quake struck the Kumamoto prefecture on July 28, with the death toll reaching 38, according to regional government figures.About half of the fatalities were as result of two incidents; a suspected gas explosion in a shopping centre and structural damage at a paper mill.The shopping centre had mostly been evacuated due to the earthquake but some people were still inside when a blast ripped through the building about an hour after the tremor. Images of the aftermath show an entire side of the centre torn away exposing steel beams.The collapse of an 80-metre tall concrete chimney at a Nippon Paper Industries mill resulted in the deaths of nine people in a nearby office building. The company’s president this week said the tragedy has been taken “extremely seriously,” and they “express our deepest condolences over those who lost their lives and offer our heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families”.