Kumamoto residents pick up the pieces following Kyushu’s strongest quake
by Daisuke Kikuchi, Staff Writer
Japan Times
Apr 15, 2016
http://bit.ly/23MBhPF

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Caption: Roof tiles that fell from a house in Mashiki, Kumamoto Prefecture, are seen on Friday morning. The area was severely hit by a magnitude-6.5 quake Thursday night. | KYODO

MASHIKI, KUMAMOTO PREF. – The toll from the high-intensity earthquake in Kumamoto stood at nine dead and over 1,000 injured Friday as rescue crews scrambled to search the debris for survivors.

The shallow, magnitude-6.5 quake toppled houses and buckled roads in and around the prefectural capital on Thursday night in what was Kyushu’s first level 7 temblor on the seven-tier Japanese seismic intensity scale.

“It was just like the Great Hanshin Earthquake or the Great East Japan Earthquake. I never thought I would experience that here,” mother-of-one Akiko Hakata told The Japan Times. “I hunched over my son to protect him.”

Most of the victims were in the town of Mashiki, on the capital’s eastern fringe. But heavy damage was incurred elsewhere, including at historic Kumamoto Castle.

The quake struck at 9:26 p.m. at a depth of just 11 km under Mashiki, the Meteorological Agency said, prompting tens of thousands of residents from there and elsewhere to take refuge at public shelters for the night.