On July 28, the earth beneath Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan, shifted with a force of 7.1 magnitude, and by July 30 it had claimed at least 28 lives — among them workers at a shopping mall where an explosion followed the tremor, and laborers at a paper factory whose smokestack crumbled. Japan, perched atop four tectonic plates along the Pacific Ring of Fire, has long lived in negotiation with seismic violence; Kumamoto itself bore this same grief in 2016. The rescue continues, the aftershocks persist, and a nation practiced in resilience finds itself, once again, measuring what the gr
Kumamoto earthquake death toll reaches 28 as rescuers search mall ruins
28 people confirmed dead including four at Aeon mall; five killed at Nippon Paper factory; four unaccounted for; thousands displaced without power and water.