Several people trapped in a shopping center that collapsed due to a strong earthquake in southern Japan

BarcelonaA magnitude 7.1 earthquake shook the Kyushu region in southern Japan this Tuesday, causing at least one death, about eighty injuries, and damage to infrastructure and buildings. Currently, attention is focused on a partially collapsed shopping center, where several people are trapped and casualties are believed to have occurred.

The earthquake occurred at 4:27 PM local time (9:27 AM Catalan time), at a depth of about ten kilometers below the city of Uki, in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. Some areas of the region registered the maximum level on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, which measures surface agitation and the destructive potential of earthquakes. The country's meteorological agency initially issued a tsunami warning for several coastal areas, but all alerts were lifted two hours after the quake.

So far, only one fatality has been confirmed, a person who was inside a house that collapsed in the city of Yatsushiro and who died in the hospital. About eighty injuries have also been reported. Firefighters have reported that the earthquake caused the second floor of a shopping center in the city of Kashima to collapse and that an explosion occurred in the building. Several people are trapped under the rubble and casualties are believed to have occurred, according to some local media. A spokesperson for Aeon, the company operating the shopping center, explained that customers and workers were evacuated after the quake and said the specific cause of the explosion is still unknown. According to the public broadcaster NHK, contact has been lost with between 20 and 30 workers, and authorities are trying to confirm if they are trapped inside the building. The broadcaster also reported that several people are missing after a chimney collapsed at a factory of the paper group Nippon Paper Industries.

The Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, said that the full extent of casualties and damage is still being assessed, and only confirmed that injuries have been reported and that power outages, fires, damage to roads and bridges, and collapsed buildings have occurred. She also said that 3,600 soldiers will be deployed to the affected area.

The Japanese meteorological agency has warned residents in areas that have suffered the strongest tremors that there may be strong aftershocks for approximately one week and that there is a risk of landslides. More than 300,000 people have received instructions to go to evacuation centers, according to the disaster management agency.

The company Kyushu Electric Power has reported that about 45,000 homes have been left without electricity and the railway operator JR Kyushu has suspended services, including its Shinkansen high-speed trains. The nuclear regulatory authority has assured that no irregularities have been reported at the region's nuclear power plants.

The earthquake comes just over 10 years after two tremors shook the city of Kumamoto in April 2016, leaving 278 dead and 2,800 injured. Japan is located on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the most seismically active zones in the world, with earthquakes every five minutes. 20% of magnitude 6 or higher earthquakes recorded in the world occur in Japan, meaning its infrastructure is specially designed to withstand tremors. Japan's worst earthquake in modern history was on March 11, 2011, which was magnitude 9.1 and led to a tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear accident.