MALL COLLAPSES IN JAPAN'S 7.1 QUAKE — RESCUERS DIG FOR THE MISSING
The Aeon mall's second floor collapsed in Kashima; rescuers dig through the night, no official toll yet. — DEVELOPING
A magnitude-7.1 earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture at 4:27 p.m. local time Tuesday and dropped the second floor of the Aeon mall in Kashima onto the shoppers below. Local officials told NHK a large number of people remain trapped in the wreckage. Police cannot reach 20 to 30 mall employees. Most customers got out. Japan's TBS network reports a “considerable number” of deaths inside the building. Police have confirmed none. No official toll exists yet — that is the limit of what is known, and it will move.
The Japan Meteorological Agency measured the quake at 7.1; the US Geological Survey put it at 6.8. The shaking registered 7 on Japan's shindo scale — the top of the scale, the level Kumamoto last hit in April 2016. The epicenter sat near Uto, a coastal city on Kyushu, Japan's southern main island. JMA issued tsunami advisories along the coast and lifted the last of them at 6:10 p.m., inside two hours.
