Many trapped in Japanese mall after earthquake

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and 15 Hours GMT on Tuesday, the 28th of July. These are our main stories. Japan assesses the damage after a strong earthquake hits the coastal city of Kumamoto. Many are trapped in a collapsed shopping center. The leaders of Ukraine and Israel are in Washington. What can we expect to come out of those meetings with Donald Trump?
Also in this podcast, how drug cartels in Ecuador are ruining lives and communities.

**Orla Guerin** (0:37)
How many people have you killed?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:42)
Well until now, about eight, I think. I don't remember well.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (0:46)
And it's a long-awaited homecoming for Zinedine Zidane, who will now manage France's national football team.
We begin in Japan where many people are trapped in a shopping center following a powerful earthquake. The 7.1 magnitude tremor shook the southwestern city of Kumamoto. Witnesses say there was an explosion and fire at the mall. The walls surrounding a 15th century castle were also pulled down by the quake and some roads were damaged. 175 kilometers away in the town of Kagoshima, effects of the quake were felt. Felix Umland, a German photography student, was on the 13th floor of a hotel.

**Felix Umland** (1:31)
My phone just started blaring an earthquake warning, or generally all phones around, but it was just me and two other people of staff up there.
I was just looking at my phone thinking, okay, I don't know what to do now, and you don't really get much warning with the earthquakes. It's about like, I think, five seconds maybe. It felt a lot longer, but like five seconds later, just everything started shaking. It feels like the building beneath you kind of turns into a liquid. It's a very surreal feeling that literally feels like you're standing like at the top of a rubbery snake or kind of a liquid.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (2:06)
I got this update from our correspondent in the region, Jake Kwon.

**Jake Kwon** (2:10)
The local fire department has confirmed that there are multiple people, many people trapped inside this shopping centre, and the images we've seen, you know, the façade of the mall has collapsed. There's debris and dust kind of flung all over the parking lot. And we have the witness report saying that they've seen explosion and fire after the tremor before the second floor of the mall had collapsed. And what the authorities are fearing that there may be many people injured or even possibly dead inside. And we have seen the fire department and the rescue workers going into the building to assess the situation and possibly rescue people.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (2:46)
And how have the authorities responded to this? Have they been sending teams to the area?

**Jake Kwon** (2:51)
What we heard from Prime Minister Takaichi is that they have mobilized more than 1600 personnel out of their self-defense forces. This is Japan's security force to help with the disaster relief.
And they understand this is a critical situation and they will try to save human lives first. But, right now, I think they're still in that phase of assessing the situation and what kind of damage and injury that may have happened. Earlier, we had this report of more than 50 people who have been brought to the local hospital.
The Prime Minister has also said that the power lines has been cut, roads and bridges are destroyed, the freight train has been overturned. And we are seeing reports of fires and collapsed buildings. So we're expecting not only the human damage, but the infrastructure damage to be quite extensive.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (3:40)
I mean, disasters like these are unpredictable, but Japan does have more earthquakes than some other countries. So are the authorities prepared for things like this?

**Jake Kwon** (3:51)
Japan is certainly no stranger to earthquakes and tsunamis and they have extensive regulation to make sure that the buildings are built to withstand any damages, they're resistant to tremors. You know, whenever these earthquakes happen, we not only look at the location, whether it's close to population centers and the magnitude, but we also look at the depth and 10 kilometers that we've seen today is quite shallow. If this were anywhere else on the planet, it would be quite devastating. Look at Venezuela, that was 10 kilometers too, and we saw thousands of people death reported so far. But this being Japan, because their level of preparedness, the death toll tends to be smaller. Having said that, Japan still experiences these major earthquake that you cannot prevent human death by human will. And last time, this area had this level of tremor in 2016