7.1 Earthquake in Japan

  - at least 50 hospitalized due to various injuries[1]
  - 9 missing, 12 house collapses, 4 trappings, 7 fires so far[1]
  - multiple highway road bridges snapped, roads damaged[2]
  - AEON brand shopping mall exploded following evacuation, cause unknown[3]
  - chimney collapsed at Nippon Seishi paper factory[4]
  - TSMC, Sony, Fujifilm chips, imagers, materials plants evacuated[4]
  - epicenter reported as 32.6N 130.7E[5], roughly 20km/12mi south of previous major earthquake[7], 
    320km/200mi SE from Busan, 650km/400mi from Seoul, 900km/550mi WSW from Tokyo, likewise 900km/550mi
    due east from Shanghai, 1200km/730mi due south to Vladivostok, etc
  - stone wall behind a moat damaged again at Kumamoto castle[8]

This was my first real earthquake since moving to Kyushu. After it stopped I looked it up, and the first place to post the epicenter and shindo was NERV's twitter...which is named after the org from the anime and has an anime screenshot as its banner (https://x.com/EN_NERV). Apparently it's a real disaster information service, though.

It's been mentioned before but maybe interesting to some (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38835419).

In parts of Kumamoto Prefecture, it registered 7 on the Japanese shindo (seismic intensity) scale, which reflects the amount of ground shaking at a particular location. The shindo is a better indicator of the likely amount of damage than the magnitude is. A shindo of 7 is extremely strong [1].

Ten minutes ago (at around 17:15 p.m. Japan time), NHK was reporting that there were many emergency calls coming in from Uki City, where shindo 7 was recorded, but that the extent of the damage or injuries was not yet known.

There have also been many aftershocks, including some strong ones, and tsunami warnings.

[1] https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/jishintsunami/jishin...

I'm living in the South of Japan, it was a 4 intensity where I am (about 90km) from the epicenter. Luckily there was only some light shaking and nothing fell over here.

Kumamoto is barely finished rebuilding from the last quake, you can still see cracks in structures as you drive down the road. This is really horrible; not to mention the city is already beginning to depopulate as the youth move north to Fukuoka.

GPS reference data shows the ground has been displaced as much as 84 centimeters https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/na-k10015189191000

I hope everyone is safe in Kumamoto. In my area, we have been repeatedly warned that a major earthquake called the Nankai Trough is likely to occur in the last few years or decades, so I am very scared of big earthquakes happening in other areas as well.

Similar strength and location as the 2016 one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kumamoto_earthquakes

Fukuoka here (about 100km from Kumamoto) and definitely felt it, so it must have been a real big one in Kumamoto itself.

My friend was driving home from work closer to Miyazaki and didn't feel the quake, but had huge hailstones hitting his car. There's a rapture going on or something

Many emergency shelters have not had their building safety confirmed so parking lots are opened to allow people to sleep in their cars, as they are warned to avoid "economy-class syndrome" from sleeping in a tight space. https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/na-k10015189161000

Was looking at webcams here (https://tokyo.fyi) but realized this is further south.

Does anyone know if this also affects South Korea?

I'm in Fukuoka. We had shindo 3 here.

My phone alarm went off just before the shaking, but the thing that really surprised me was how strong it felt. I instinctively ran outside.

I hope everyone closer to the epicenter is safe.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/28/asia/japan-earthquake-int... for some Reuters reporting.

Man, why are the beautiful places of this world so much at constant risk :(

This was felt in Shanghai, like a truck passing by. The second one in two months?

arent they trying to make silicon fabs there?

It is currently summer vacation season in Japan, so we expect there to be many tourists. We hope everyone stays safe.

7.1 seems to mean non resistant buildings may collapse.

It’s been officially revised down to 6.8, but that’s still a lot.

Hope the residents of Kumamoto Prefecture stay safe and are able to evacuate.

Hope everybody is staying safe in Japan but this will not be the last earthquake, there are many experts pointing this as the beginning with even bigger magnitude coming up.

I'd strongly caution against a Japan trip right now.

also earth quake in china.

Why does this earthquake, of similar magnitude, get so much more attention compared to the recent Venezuelan earthquake last month that was 100x more devastating? There was no commentary on HN about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Venezuela_earthquakes

It is very sad

United States Geological Survey https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=21.04224...

Live NHK-WORLD-NEWS feed (English-language commentator) https://www.youtube.com/live/f0lYkdA-Gtw?si=Sc8ZbldZUQESiJQZ

For anyone that had their heart skip a beat like me:

"The Japanese Nuclear Energy Agency says no damage has been detected at three nearby nuclear power plants."

bless them

thoughts and prayers

Shit hope everyone is ok.

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Tldr; Seems like major cities didn't get hit by the earthquake at 7 scale.

Hoping for zero casualities.

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Truly devastating, hope people are safe

Godzilla is waking up.

This is really interesting

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ohh. what was the intensity?

8 is serious. 9 is Pacific subduction rupture.

7 is not really top news of the day.

People with friends and family exposed don't really appreciate being false-alarmed with 7s and 6s.