A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Japan’s southern prefecture of Kumamoto on Tuesday afternoon, collapsing buildings, igniting fires and trapping people inside a shopping centre and an industrial plant as emergency crews mounted an extensive overnight rescue operation.

The earthquake occurred at 4.27pm local time on 28 July, with its epicentre in the Kumamoto region of Kyushu.

It registered the maximum intensity of seven on Japan’s seismic scale in Uki and Hikawa, indicating violent ground movement capable of overturning heavy furniture, damaging reinforced structures and making it impossible for most people to remain standing.

An overseas geological assessment placed the magnitude at 6.8, a routine difference arising from distinct measurement methods and data sets.

Reports indicated at least one confirmed death, more than 50 injuries and numerous people missing, although the casualty figures were changing as rescuers entered the most heavily damaged structures.

Separate accounts of several deaths at a shopping complex circulated during the initial response, but those fatalities had not all been incorporated into the consolidated official toll.

Two workers recovered from a damaged factory were found without vital signs, a description Japanese authorities commonly use until deaths are formally certified.

The gravest rescue operation centred on an Aeon shopping centre in Kashima, where part of the second floor collapsed while customers and employees were evacuating.

Witnesses reported a powerful explosion followed by smoke, but the cause had not been established.

A gas leak was being examined as one possibility; the allegation that the earthquake directly triggered a gas explosion remained unproven.

About 200 people reached the car park outside the complex.

Several others were rescued with injuries, while approximately nine or ten people remained unaccounted for in the latest detailed accounts.

Emergency workers entered unstable sections of the building while firefighting and structural teams attempted to prevent further collapse.

A second major operation was under way at the Nippon Paper Industries plant in Yatsushiro after a chimney fell and trapped workers.

Eleven people were initially reported caught inside the affected area.

Two were rescued without vital signs, while searches continued for others whose whereabouts could not immediately be confirmed.

Damage extended across central and southern Kumamoto.

Houses collapsed, fires broke out in several municipalities and large cracks opened in roads.

Images from the region showed damaged bridges, disrupted expressways and a derailed freight train.

Parts of Kumamoto Castle, the seventeenth-century landmark still undergoing restoration after the earthquakes of 2016, also sustained damage to their stonework.

The disruption reached the region’s principal transport links.

Kyushu Shinkansen bullet-train services were suspended while tracks and structures were inspected, conventional rail operations were interrupted and flights at Aso Kumamoto Airport were halted or diverted.

Airport passengers were reported trapped temporarily in lifts after power systems failed.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses lost electricity.

Water supplies and telecommunications were also interrupted in some districts, complicating both public communication and the work of emergency services.

Damage to a fire-service dispatch system in Yatsushiro forced emergency calls to be handled directly by individual stations, limiting the authorities’ ability to compile an immediate regional total.

More than 260,000 residents in Kumamoto and neighbouring Nagasaki were covered by evacuation instructions during the initial emergency, with some estimates approaching 300,000.

Shelters opened across the affected municipalities as residents were advised to avoid damaged houses, steep ground and coastal areas.

A tsunami advisory was issued for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas shortly after the earthquake, warning of waves of up to approximately one metre.

It was withdrawn at 6.10pm after monitoring showed that the immediate threat had receded.

The lifting of the advisory did not end the wider emergency: repeated aftershocks continued, including a magnitude 6.1 tremor in the Amakusa and Ashikita region less than an hour after the principal quake.

Officials warned that earthquake activity was spread across a broad area and that another tremor of comparable intensity could occur during the following week.

The first two or three days carry the greatest immediate concern.

Shaken buildings may fail under lesser aftershocks, while fractured slopes become more susceptible to landslides, particularly if rain follows.

No abnormalities were detected at the Sendai or Genkai nuclear power stations, and the operating reactors remained stable.

That confirmation removed one potential source of danger in a country where earthquake assessments are inseparable from the experience of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The earthquake also disrupted an increasingly important industrial corridor.

Kumamoto is home to semiconductor and automotive facilities, including operations linked to major Japanese manufacturers and an expanding chip-production cluster.

Factories halted work, evacuated employees or initiated structural inspections.

Initial company assessments indicated that several major semiconductor sites remained structurally intact, but production interruptions and supply-chain consequences will depend on power restoration, transport access and the results of equipment inspections.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi established a government response operation and ordered national resources to support local authorities.

Thousands of military personnel, firefighters, police officers and specialist rescue teams were mobilised, accompanied by helicopters and aircraft for aerial reconnaissance, medical transport and damage assessment.

Reinforcements were dispatched from several prefectures under Japan’s emergency mutual-assistance system.

The disaster has revived painful memories of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake sequence, when a major initial shock was followed roughly two days later by a still stronger earthquake.

That sequence killed hundreds of people, including later disaster-related deaths, injured thousands and caused extensive damage throughout the same region.

The precedent is one reason authorities are treating the present aftershock warning with particular gravity.

Japan’s engineering codes, earthquake alerts and disciplined emergency procedures reduce casualties, but they cannot eliminate the danger posed by intense, shallow shaking close to populated areas.

The collapse of commercial and industrial structures will now prompt scrutiny of building resilience, evacuation practice, gas isolation and whether ostensibly restricted areas remained occupied after the first warning.

Rescue teams are continuing to search the Aeon complex, the Yatsushiro factory and damaged homes while utilities inspect essential networks.

The immediate national priority is to reach those still trapped before further strong aftershocks threaten already weakened structures.