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

BarcelonaA magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Kyushu region in southern Japan on Tuesday, causing at least fifty injuries and damage to infrastructure and buildings. Currently, attention is focused on a partially collapsed shopping center, where several people are trapped and believed to be fatalities.

The earthquake occurred at 4:27 PM local time (9:27 AM Catalan time), at a depth of approximately 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.

There is still no official information on casualties, but the public broadcaster NHK has reported that at least 50 people have been taken to a local hospital, and the police are searching for nine people who have not yet been located. 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 fatalities are believed to have occurred, according to some local media. A spokesperson for Aeon, the company operating the shopping center, explained that customers and employees were evacuated after the quake and said that the specific cause of the explosion is still unknown.

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 the areas that experienced the strongest tremors that strong aftershocks may occur for approximately one week and that there is a risk of landslides. More than 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centers, according to the disaster management agency.

The company Kyushu Electric Power has reported that around 45,000 homes have been left without electricity and the railway operator JR Kyushu has suspended services, including its high-speed Shinkansen trains. The nuclear regulatory authority has assured that no irregularities have been reported at the region's atomic 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 people injured. Japan is located on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the most active seismic zones in the world, with earthquakes every five minutes. 20% of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher occur in Japan, so its infrastructure is specially designed to withstand tremors. The worst earthquake in Japan's modern history was on March 11, 2011, which was magnitude 9.1 and led to a tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear accident.