{"id":68524,"date":"2026-08-04T00:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/68524\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:30:17","slug":"japans-rescuers-battle-cruel-heat-after-major-earthquake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/68524\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Rescuers Battle Cruel Heat After Major Earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the aftermath of the major earthquake<\/a> in southwestern Japan, emergency workers and thousands of displaced residents are mounting a grueling recovery amid sweltering heat.<\/p>\n

Four days on, the death toll from Tuesday\u2019s magnitude-6.8 earthquake<\/a> in Kumamoto has risen to 36. Rescue workers have been navigating aftershocks \u2014 around 300 so far, according to the Japan meteorological agency \u2014 as well as temperatures nearing 100 degrees to reach any remaining survivors trapped in collapsed buildings. More than 9,000 people are sheltering in evacuation centers.<\/p>\n

In the muggy evening heat at the mangled Aeon shopping mall, hundreds of rescue workers toiled in rotating shifts hoisting slabs of concrete and twisted metal in search of survivors. Seven people were killed when the building\u2019s second floor collapsed, while five were pulled from the rubble alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know if that\u2019s everyone, so we\u2019re still going nonstop,\u201d said Takeshi Ueda, a Kumamoto police official stationed at the mall on Thursday evening. Heat trapped inside the gutted building from heavy equipment has been \u201cbrutally tough\u201d for workers wearing heavy gear and masks, he said.<\/p>\n

It is also dangerous, with \u201csteel framework held up by threads,\u201d he added. \u201cOperating under those conditions is grueling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Kumamoto, relief efforts in the coming days and weeks will be critical.<\/p>\n

When powerful earthquakes<\/a> struck the region in 2016, direct casualties initially numbered around 50 from collapsing structures. The disaster\u2019s total death toll eventually surpassed 270 as evacuees succumbed to secondary health complications, brought on by stress and prolonged stays in cramped shelters and cars.<\/p>\n

This time, the main challenge is likely to be battling heat.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s tremor was the first of this seismic intensity to strike the earthquake-prone country during the height of its blistering summer months.<\/p>\n

Since the quake, dozens of people in Kumamoto have been transported to hospitals with suspected cases of heatstroke, according to local officials\u2019 tallies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis summer\u2019s intense heat represents a situation that can truly be described as a double disaster,\u201d Minoru Kihara, Japan\u2019s chief cabinet secretary, said at a news conference on Friday. Mr. Kihara promised support from the national government to help the prefecture secure air-conditioning equipment.<\/p>\n

A Tragedy Compounded<\/p>\n

Conditions in Kumamoto City, the biggest in the prefecture, were largely undisrupted in the days following the quake. But south of the city, the roads were cracked and buckled and plumes of black smoke were visible in the distance. In Yatsushiro, near the epicenter, rows of old wooden homes with tile roofs lay flattened, their contents spilling into the streets.<\/p>\n

Eiko Ishibashi, 69, went to an evacuation center in Yatsushiro, a converted middle-school gymnasium, to escape the heat after violent shaking from the earthquake had broken the air-conditioner in her home. The major earthquake that struck Kumamoto 10 years ago occurred in the more temperate month of April, she noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this time it\u2019s just so hot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, temperatures in some parts of the prefecture are projected to hit 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the threshold for what meteorologists in Japan are now calling \u201ckokushobi,\u201d or \u201ccruelly hot days<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to prefectural officials, 374 evacuation centers have provided refuge for residents whose homes were destroyed or left without functioning utilities. But many of these facilities lack air conditioning.<\/p>\n

In Yatsushiro, the evacuation center at the middle school had roughly 280 families and does have climate control. Volunteer students checked in residents at the entrance, while evacuees rested inside, many napping on blankets spread across the cool gym floor. The facility had recently begun bringing in evacuees from a nearby elementary school that lacked power for air conditioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the time of year, places without functioning air conditioning are basically unusable,\u201d said Atsuko Koide, a Yatsushiro City government worker overseeing operations at the site. Even with air conditioning at the middle school, several evacuees were hospitalized with heatstroke after returning to their damaged homes during the day to clear debris, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless the lifelines of water and electricity are restored, we\u2019re not going to see a decrease in evacuees here anytime soon,\u201d Ms. Koide said.<\/p>\n

Masae Taniguchi, 73, was among the Yatsushiro residents clearing debris from her home on Friday. When the earthquake hit, she was sitting on a couch, which slid across her house in the shaking. \u201cThe tremors were so unbelievable \u2014 they just wouldn\u2019t stop,\u201d she said. \u201cAt one point I completely gave up and thought \u2018I\u2019m going to die right here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Ms. Taniguchi\u2019s home had electricity but no running water, forcing her to step out into the heat three times a day to fill buckets using a hose connected to a groundwater supply at a store across the street.<\/p>\n

Ms. Taniguchi lives a few streets away from the Nippon Paper Industries factory, where nine people died when a chimney collapsed. The last missing worker at the facility was found dead on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Ms. Taniguchi, who had worked until retirement at the plant, said that she knew several of the workers who had died. \u201cI watched smoke from those chimneys my whole life,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the aftermath of the major earthquake in southwestern Japan, emergency workers and thousands of displaced residents are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[40921,9451,8,42475,42476,42477],"class_list":["post-68524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-heat-and-heat-waves","tag-heatstroke","tag-japan","tag-kumamoto-japan","tag-kumamoto-prefecture-japan","tag-rescues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}