Kumamoto earthquake leaves shelters at risk as heatwave deepens

About 9,000 evacuees were sleeping in Kumamoto’s crowded shelters after the July 28 earthquake as temperatures near 39C pushed heatstroke and dehydration risk higher. Limited air-conditioning left families exposed as the summer heat settled over a prefecture already coping with collapsed buildings and broken lifelines.

The magnitude 7.1 quake killed at least 34 people and left tens of thousands of households without power and water. Rescue crews kept searching collapsed sites including AEON Mall Kumamoto and a paper factory, while hundreds of others needed medical treatment.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces airlifted around 300 portable air conditioners into the area and distributed drinking water to shelters as temperatures climbed to about 39C, or 102F. Even then, some shelters never opened because outages cut off power and water, forcing some evacuees to sleep in cars. Thousands of people remained spread across more than 400 shelters in the prefecture.

The strain recalled Kumamoto’s 2016 earthquake sequence, when a magnitude 6.2 foreshock on April 14 and a magnitude 7.0 mainshock on April 16 killed 273 people in total.