Japan earthquake: 28 dead as rescuers search in high heat

Thousands of personnel have been deployed for search and rescue operations. Many are digging through the rubble of the Kashima Aeon shopping center, one of the worst-hit buildings, where the second floor collapsed.

The mall was rocked by an explosion an hour after the first quake.

Aeon’s president said the cause of the explosion was under investigation, but a gas explosion was “very likely”.

A cat cafe in the mall said on Wednesday that all 25 of its cats left behind by the earthquake were rescued.

The earthquake-ravaged AEON shopping center in Kumamoto reopened as a new shopping mall last month. The region was previously hit by severe earthquakes in April 2016 that killed 278 people.

Rescuers were combing the Nippon Paper Factory in the city of Yatsushiro, where at least five people died after part of the factory collapsed during the earthquake.

Eleven people were trapped in the building, seven of whom have been rescued so far, Nippon Paper said in a statement on Wednesday.

The shallow 10-kilometer (six-mile) quake jolted residents around Kumamoto.

Hiroko Ogata, a 75-year-old restaurant owner in the city of Yatsushiro, told the BBC. When the earthquake struck, she hid under a table in her restaurant and was shaken violently..

“I’ve lived here for 75 years, but I’ve never experienced an earthquake this big,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”