Rescue operations continue in Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake. Volunteer firefighter Tomohide Nagata told the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun: "There was a voice coming from the collapsed house, and I could see a hand. One of our senior members crawled in and pulled him out. He was bleeding from the head, but I'm so glad he survived." This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
Nagata heard a noise from a completely flattened home in the rural town of Hikawa, near the epicenter. Many older houses collapsed, and terrified residents spent Tuesday night in their cars outside Hikawa's town hall, where staff distributed food and drinks.
At least 13 people were killed and hundreds injured. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday: "There are people who are still waiting to be rescued, and it's a race against time. We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can."
Iwaoka Shigemi, 79, and his wife, Michiyo, 77, escaped their house and slept in their car in Hikawa. With temperatures expected to reach 35C on Wednesday, they worried about heatstroke, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.
Suemi Nagata, 79, could not leave Hikawa by car because her garage was destroyed but reached the town hall with her husband and older sister. She told the local newspaper: "The lateral shaking was worse than the Kumamoto earthquake 10 years ago, and it was terrifying. Just to have survived with my life is something to be grateful for."
In April, Kumamoto prefecture marked the 10th anniversary of the 2016 earthquake that killed over 275 people. In that case, a 6.2-magnitude foreshock was followed two days later by a deadly 7-magnitude quake, a concern for many in the week ahead.
At the Kumamoto Aeon mall, a gas explosion triggered by the earthquake occurred. Several employees went back inside after evacuating customers and were caught in the blast. A 16-year-old girl who escaped moments before told the Asahi Shimbun she "felt completely safe once she was outside," only to struggle to breathe from dust and smoke.
A 74-year-old man who often shopped at the mall told the Nikkei newspaper he had just learned an acquaintance who worked there was hurt. "I could have been caught up in it myself," he said. Up to 30 employees were initially trapped, and four remain missing.
In nearby Uki City, where shaking reached the maximum 7 on the Japanese shindo scale, residents told of lucky escapes and heartbreaking rescue efforts. A woman in her 40s reached an evacuation shelter with three generations of her family after protecting her children from falling furniture. She told the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun: "I was pinned under a chest of drawers at home. I protected my children and then hurried to evacuate."
On Tuesday evening in the Asakawa district of Uki, residents found one house flattened. As family members looked on, volunteer firefighters attempted to rescue an elderly man trapped inside. The visibly shaken 70-year-old head of the local district said: "The man is a childhood friend of mine. We tried to pull him out, but the aftershocks came one after another, so we had no choice but to give up."
As in Hikawa, many Uki residents slept in their cars, and local government workers handed out water and food. Unable to use the damaged disaster facility, the city set up a makeshift response headquarters in a car park.
In Yatsushiro, south of Hikawa, one man's life may have been saved by his schedule when his workplace, a single-storey wooden structure, collapsed. "It was a day off and I wasn't at work, so I escaped with my life," said the self-employed man, 63, who spent the night in a tent pitched in his garden. "Though I have no idea what I'll do starting tomorrow."