A powerful earthquake that struck southwestern Japan on Tuesday afternoon has killed 36 people, according to Kumamoto prefectural authorities, with the death toll including two fatalities that may be linked to the disaster. The tremor, which the Japan Meteorological Agency recorded with a maximum seismic intensity of 7 on the Japanese scale in the city of Uki and the town of Hikawa, was reported by different monitoring bodies as having a magnitude of 7.1 or 6.8. It was followed by nearly 100 aftershocks, flattening homes, severing roads and triggering a major explosion at a shopping centre in the town of Kashima.

At the Aeon Mall Kumamoto, seven workers died after a suspected gas blast caused the second floor to collapse shortly after the initial quake, local officials said. Police, firefighters and Self-Defence Forces personnel completed their search of the site by noon on Saturday and concluded that no one remained trapped. Separately, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that 11 people were buried under rubble at a Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro after a chimney collapsed, and that only two survived. The prefectural government has confirmed the identities of 27 victims and plans to release their names once families consent.

More than 9,000 residents have been forced into evacuation centres, with the number fluctuating between roughly 9,000 and 9,500 across 218 to 229 shelters on Saturday, depending on the time of day. Many evacuees, however, are sleeping in their cars to run air conditioning as temperatures are forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius on Monday. About 70,000 households remain without water, and the prefecture has no timetable for restoring supply. Fuel shortages have compounded the crisis, with long queues at petrol stations, though the central government has asked wholesalers to increase deliveries to four times the usual level, according to the prefecture.

Volunteer centres opened on Saturday in the town of Mashiki, where work began removing damaged household items, and the towns of Kashima and Mifune also started recruiting volunteers. Power has been largely restored across the affected area. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stressed that authorities must secure water supplies by doing “whatever it takes” and called for close coordination with the military, the Independent reported. The prefecture’s disaster response headquarters said it was stepping up emergency water distribution by prioritising water truck dispatches based on information compiled from national, prefectural and municipal authorities.

Preliminary assessments of structural damage vary: the prefecture has counted 3,649 damaged homes, of which 181 were completely destroyed, while other tallies put the number of damaged buildings at around 1,500. The search for missing persons has concluded, and the provisional death toll stands at 36. Authorities continue to warn of dangerous heat and urge precautions against heatstroke as the region marks its first weekend since the disaster.