9 Confirmed Dead in Southwestern Japan Quake

Kumamoto, April 15 (Jiji Press)--A total of nine people have been confirmed dead after Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan, was hit by powerful earthquakes Thursday night and early Friday, according to the police department of the prefecture and other sources. Four of the nine victims have been identified. Of them, three, aged between 54 and 84, were residents in the town of Mashiki in the prefecture, and the other was a 29-year-old man in the prefectural capital of Kumamoto. An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 6.5 on the open-ended Richter scale jolted Kumamoto Prefecture around 9:26 p.m. Thursday (12:26 p.m. GMT), measuring the maximum level on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Mashiki and lower 6 in the city of Kumamoto and some other municipalities in the prefecture, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. A number of aftershocks hit the prefecture, including one that occurred around 12:03 a.m. and measured upper 6 on the Japanese scale in the city of Uki and another that struck around 1:53 a.m. and measured lower 5 in the town of Yamato. Some 390 people were injured in the quakes, while a total of 23,000 residents in municipalities including Mashiki, Kumamoto and Uki have been evacuated. As many houses collapsed in Mashiki, some 1,000 police officers, firefighters and Self-Defense Forces troops are continuing search and rescue activities. END