At 16:27 on July 28, 2026, an earthquake struck southern Kumamoto Prefecture — the epicentre was just east of Uto and south of Kumamoto City, in what the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) calls the Kumamoto region — registering shindo 7, the top of Japan’s seismic intensity scale, in Uki City and Hikawa Town. The JMA has named it the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake. This article is not a substitute for breaking news. It sets out what happened, with every figure attributed and stamped with the time it was current, then covers what people in Japan and people planning to come should do, and how to check the latest for themselves. Damage, utility and transport figures change by the hour. Everything below is based on material published as of 14:00 JST on July 29, 2026.

What happened: the basics of the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake

According to the JMA, the earthquake occurred at 16:27 on July 28, 2026, at a preliminary depth of 16 km and a preliminary magnitude of 7.1. Shindo 7 was recorded in Uki City and Hikawa Town, and shindo 6-upper in Kumamoto City, Yatsushiro, Uto, Misato and Mashiki (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, or MLIT, 5th report, as of 14:00 on July 29). A tsunami advisory for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas was issued at 16:29 and lifted at 18:10 the same day.

If you have seen the depth given as 10 km, that is not a reporting error — it is the JMA’s own first estimate. Its opening release on July 28 gave “about 10 km (flash value),” and its third release at 20:30 that evening revised this to “16 km (provisional; updated from the flash value of about 10 km).” Magnitude also differs by agency. The United States Geological Survey lists the same event as Mww 6.8 at a depth of 10 km, with the epicentre east of Uto, and most English-language coverage uses that figure. JMA magnitude and moment magnitude are calculated differently, and each agency locates the hypocentre independently. The 6.8 you may read elsewhere and the 7.1 here are the same earthquake.

Aftershocks are continuing. Per MLIT’s 5th report, 48 earthquakes of shindo 3 or greater had been recorded as of 12:00 on July 29: one at shindo 7, three at shindo 5-lower, eleven at shindo 4 and thirty-three at shindo 3.

The government set up a response office at the Prime Minister’s Office at 16:28 and established the Extraordinary Disaster Management Headquarters for the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake, chaired by the Prime Minister, at 18:20 the same day. The Self-Defense Forces were initially described as deploying about 3,600 personnel; at a press conference beginning at 09:56 on July 29 the Defense Minister said this would be raised to roughly 4,600.

Snapshot as of July 29: damage and utilities

The first thing to understand is that casualty figures differ depending on which body published them. Kumamoto Prefecture’s tally, current as of 07:30 on July 29, lists 3 dead, 5 in cardiopulmonary arrest, 3 seriously injured, 4 with moderate injuries, 8 with minor injuries and 16 whose injuries had not yet been classified — 39 people in total. Cardiopulmonary arrest is a category Japanese authorities use for people found without pulse or breathing before a physician certifies death, so those numbers often move into the death toll later. The 16th report from Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA), issued at 14:00 the same day and compiling the reports submitted by prefectural governments, gives 3 dead, 8 seriously injured and 15 slightly injured, while a separate column in the same document, drawn from local fire headquarters, reads “many injured, including 8 dead, whose severity and connection to the disaster are under investigation.” The Prime Minister said on the morning of July 29 that 13 people had died, including those whose deaths are being examined for a connection to the disaster; the Nikkei and Kyodo News gave this as current at 08:30 on July 29, while NHK reported it without attaching a time. Every figure has to be read as the count published by one particular body, current at one particular time.

At Aeon Mall Kumamoto in Kashima Town, according to Kumamoto Prefecture, an explosion occurred at around 18:00 on July 28 and the second floor of the building collapsed (the FDMA wording is simply “the second floor of a commercial facility collapsed”). The prefecture’s third disaster headquarters meeting, current as of 09:30 on July 29, reported that eight people had been rescued at the site: two dead, one in cardiopulmonary arrest, four with moderate injuries and one with minor injuries. Of the three deaths in the FDMA’s prefectural-report table, two are in Kashima Town and one in Kosa Town; the two in Kashima are from this site. No official explanation of the cause has been issued, and reporting so far points to a possible gas leak.

Some people remain unaccounted for. The same prefectural meeting reported that a chimney collapsed at a factory in Yatsushiro City, trapping 11 people, of whom four were rescued and seven remained unaccounted for. Jiji Press and several other outlets reported nine unaccounted for, but that was the earlier stage when only two people had been rescued, and those reports carry no timestamp. The number moves as rescue proceeds, so check it against the most recent official statement.

Evacuation is large-scale. Kumamoto Prefecture’s tally as of 07:30 on July 29 gives 465 shelters open with 9,872 evacuees, and per the FDMA’s 16th report, evacuation orders covered 107,032 households and 222,250 people across three cities and three towns, with the stronger “emergency safety securing” instruction issued to a further 46,610 households and 92,743 people in two municipalities. Utility figures also vary by source. Kumamoto Prefecture put power outages at about 36,700 households as of 07:30 on July 29, while Kyushu Electric Power Transmission and Distribution reported about 32,670 as of 10:30 (via the Nikkei). For water, the prefecture’s tally gives 56,815 households cut off, whereas MLIT’s 5th report (as of 12:00 on July 29) gives roughly 84,000 across 11 municipalities in two prefectures; the two counts cover different areas, and MLIT’s is the broader one. There is still no official count of damaged homes in Kumamoto: the prefecture’s document says “under investigation” and the FDMA’s housing columns for Kumamoto are blank, so secondary sources quoting numbers of destroyed buildings have no official backing.

Transport: the picture on July 29, and how to check it yourself

Per the operating status JR Kyushu published as current at 13:00 on July 29, the Kyushu Shinkansen between Hakata and Kumamoto was suspended from the start of service and the Kumamoto–Kagoshima-Chuo section was suspended all day, which in practice means the whole line. MLIT’s 5th report (as of 12:45 that day) likewise records “services suspended: the entire Kyushu Shinkansen.” The Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen ran normally. On conventional lines, the Kagoshima Main Line between Arao and Yatsushiro, the Hohi Main Line between Kumamoto and Miyaji, and the Misumi Line between Uto and Misumi were suspended all day, with the Hohi Main Line between Miyaji and Bungo-Taketa resuming in stages. Limited express services including Aso Boy! remained cancelled. Note that JR Kyushu’s “×” mark carries the caveat “service may resume depending on conditions” — it is not a confirmed full-day cancellation.

Hisatsu Orange Railway suspended all services on both July 28 and 29, and Minami-Aso Railway remained fully suspended with no restart date given. By contrast, the Kumamoto City Tram resumed from the start of service on July 29, and Kumamoto Electric Railway’s information updated at 11:00 that day said it had returned to normal operation.

For expressways, NEXCO West’s 4th report, current as of 11:00 on July 29, listed closures on the E3 Kyushu Expressway between Mashiki-Kumamoto-Airport IC and Ebino IC, the E3A Minami-Kyushu Expressway between Yatsushiro JCT and Hinagu IC, and the E77 Kyushu-Chuo Expressway between Kashima JCT and the Mashiki toll barrier — 110.8 km in total. NEXCO West states that “at this point there is no prospect of the closures being lifted,” and is asking drivers to detour via the East Kyushu Expressway. MLIT’s 5th report (as of 13:00 that day) describes a wider picture: 17 sections across three routes, with the E3A closed as far as Minamata IC and the E77 as far as Koike-Takayama IC. Aso Kumamoto Airport operated normally on July 29 but with 14 flights scheduled to be cancelled, and nine operators had suspended 27 intercity (highway) bus routes (both from MLIT’s 5th report). Kumamoto Ferry cancelled all sailings from both Kumamoto and Shimabara on July 29 for hull repairs (company notice).

The principle is to go to the operator’s own page rather than an aggregated summary. Each company publishes information marked “current as of [time],” and secondary sources will always lag. Never decide based on a version older than the time you intend to travel, and remember that the absence of a notice on an official site is not proof that a service is running. In English, JR Kyushu (jrkyushu.co.jp/english/) and NEXCO West (global.w-nexco.co.jp/en/) both run English sites, and JR Kyushu’s links through to its Japanese train-status page (jrkyushu.co.jp/trains/info/), which is broken down by area. Be aware that the most detailed and fastest-updating information sits on the Japanese pages: if something is not mentioned on the English site, that does not mean it is running.

The JMA’s advisory, read in the original

The advisory the JMA has posted on its page for seismic activity related to the 2026 Kumamoto Earthquake reads as follows (as of 14:00 on July 29, 2026, the most recent press release was the third report issued at 20:30 on July 28). In Japansoso’s translation of the Japanese original: “Because there have been past cases in this region in which earthquakes of comparable size followed within about one week of a large earthquake, in areas that experienced strong shaking, please be alert to earthquakes of up to around shindo 7 for about one week from the time of this earthquake. In particular, for about two to three days after an earthquake, earthquakes producing strong shaking often occur.” “The area of seismic activity in this event extends over a wide area, and depending on where and how large an earthquake occurs, shaking may be stronger than that of this earthquake (M7.1).”

The disaster-prevention points read: “In areas that experienced strong shaking, the risk of house collapse and landslides has increased. Please pay close attention to future seismic activity and rainfall conditions, and take care to keep yourself safe — for example by not entering dangerous places unless unavoidable.” The “about one week” is counted from 16:27 on July 28, which points to around August 4, and the “particularly two to three days” window falls around July 30–31. It does not mean the danger ends when the window closes.

Since July 28 the JMA and MLIT have also been operating provisional lowered thresholds for landslide-related warnings in municipalities that recorded shindo 5-upper or above. Per MLIT’s press release, the threshold drops to 70 per cent of normal in 15 municipalities in Kumamoto Prefecture (Uki, Hikawa, Kumamoto City, western Yatsushiro, Uto, Misato, Mashiki, Kashima and Kosa among them) and to 80 per cent in 11 municipalities across three prefectures — eastern Yatsushiro, Yamaga, Kikuchi, Kikuyo, Minamata, Amakusa and Tsunagi in Kumamoto, plus Minamishimabara in Nagasaki and Satsumasendai, Satsuma and Nagashima in Kagoshima. The measure does not stop at the Kumamoto border. Warnings will now be issued on less rain than usual, so treat travel in hilly areas with extra caution if it rains.

One point matters if you read only English. The JMA has issued no English-language statement on this earthquake (verified July 29, 2026), so any English version of the advisory above is a translation by somebody else, not the agency’s own words. The underlying earthquake, tsunami, weather and volcano information, however, is published in English and 14 other languages on the JMA’s multilingual portal at https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/index.html?lang=en. English speakers are not shut out of the primary source.

The 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes, and why the window is one week

The JMA’s stated reason is, in the original, that “there have been past cases in this region in which earthquakes of comparable size followed within about one week of a large earthquake.” The case most widely associated with that sentence is the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake sequence. According to JMA records, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake at 21:26 on April 14, 2016 produced shindo 7 in Mashiki Town; about 28 hours later, at 01:25 on April 16, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake produced shindo 7 again, in Mashiki and Nishihara. It was the first time in the JMA’s observational history that shindo 7 was recorded twice within a single sequence.

What this area actually experienced, in other words, is that the shaking did not simply get weaker after the first large earthquake. That said, there is no basis for asserting that the current sequence will follow the same course as 2016. Statements about which faults are involved should wait for the specialist agencies, and predictions naming a specific date are not something seismology can support.

The practical implication is simpler than the science. Buildings and walls that survived the first shock can fail in a second one. Do not linger under leaning furniture, cracked walls, loosened roof tiles or signage. Keep trips into damaged buildings to a minimum until an emergency risk assessment — the survey in which inspectors post red, yellow or green notices — has been carried out.

How to protect yourself while aftershocks continue

The situation-specific points below come from the FDMA’s earthquake disaster preparedness manual, which the agency also publishes in an English edition at fdma.go.jp/relocation/bousai_manual/e/; the quotations here are Japansoso’s translations of the Japanese original.

Extreme heat is what makes this event unusual. The weather outlook quoted in MLIT’s 5th report (as of 12:30 on July 29) says Kumamoto Prefecture will see highs of 35°C or above from July 29 through August 5, with August 2 expected to reach 40°C. The same document notes that a very strong typhoon, Typhoon No. 13, may affect Japan next week. In areas where power and water are still out, that means facing those temperatures without air conditioning or running water. At its July 28 headquarters meeting the government said it would push portable coolers and power-supply vehicles to the affected area without waiting for requests (Prime Minister’s Office; no quantity given). The only published quantity comes from the Defense Ministry: at the Defense Minister’s press conference on the morning of July 29, 300 spot coolers were to be flown from Iruma Air Base to the area that same day. If more people sleep in their cars to escape the heat, the risk of deep vein thrombosis also rises.

If you are outside Kumamoto, this is a reasonable moment to check your supplies: drinking water, a power bank, cash (cashless payment can stop working in a blackout), any regular medication, a torch, a portable radio — and shoes.

  • While asleep: “If shaking wakes you, burrow into your bedding, or get under the bed if you can, and secure your safety.” The manual adds that “in the dark, broken window glass and fragments of light fittings make injuries likely,” and recommends keeping thick socks or slippers, a torch and a portable radio by your pillow.
  • Outdoors in residential areas: “Concrete-block and stone walls along residential lanes can topple in strong shaking. If you feel shaking, move away from walls.” Utility poles and vending machines can also fall; watch overhead for roof tiles, balcony air-conditioner units and planters.
  • In an elevator: “The rule is to press the buttons for every floor and get out at the first one where it stops — but rather than rushing out in a panic, it is also important to assess the situation on that floor.” If you are trapped, “stay calm and make an effort to make contact using the emergency call button.” Many people are trapped simultaneously in an earthquake, so rescue may not arrive quickly.
  • Preventing deep vein thrombosis (six points from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare): (1) do light exercise or stretching from time to time; (2) drink enough fluids, frequently; (3) go easy on alcohol and, if possible, stop smoking; (4) wear loose clothing and do not fasten belts tightly; (5) raise and lower your heels and massage your calves; (6) elevate your legs when you sleep.

Getting information in your language: helplines and apps we verified

Disaster information in Japan is published in Japanese first, and the volume reaching other languages drops sharply. Listed below are only resources whose pages we opened and checked on July 29, 2026.

Most of the “English” and “中文” buttons on Japanese municipal websites are automatic translation widgets applied to Japanese source text, and omissions and mistranslations happen. In this event, the multilingual support with a human in the loop is the round-the-clock interpreting service at the Kumamoto Prefecture Support Center for Foreign Residents, together with the standing consultation desk Kumamoto City runs for foreign residents. Do not make a decision affecting your safety on machine-translated text alone; if you are unsure, phone one of them.

Check your own country’s embassy or consulate in Japan — its official website and social media accounts — for travel advisories and safety-registration guidance. Japan’s Immigration Services Agency added a dedicated page for this earthquake to its Portal Site for Living and Working in Japan on July 29, and that portal’s “emergencies and disasters” chapter is published in 19 languages, including Easy Japanese (yasashii nihongo — deliberately simplified Japanese used with non-native speakers), English, Chinese and Korean, with links onward to Safety tips and NHK WORLD-JAPAN.

  • JMA multilingual weather and disaster information: https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/index.html?lang=en — earthquake, tsunami, weather and volcano information in English and 14 other languages (simplified and traditional Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, Thai, Nepali and others). The entry page is jma.go.jp/jma/kokusai/multi.html.
  • Kumamoto Prefecture Support Center for Foreign Residents: 080-4275-4489 / 070-5696-4810 (kuma-koku.jp/page381.html). Open 24 hours, free and confidential. Consultations are handled through interpreters in 22 languages including Easy Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Nepali, and the centre asks callers not to hang up before an interpreter comes on the line (page updated July 29, 2026). For life-threatening emergencies, call 119 (fire and ambulance; the police number is 110).
  • Kumamoto City Foreign Residents Comprehensive Consultation Plaza: 096-359-4995 / soudan@kumamoto-if.or.jp, on the second floor of the Kumamoto City International Center at 4-18 Hanabatacho, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto City (熊本市中央区花畑町4-18 — worth showing to a driver). This is the city’s standing consultation desk for foreign residents, not a disaster hotline; for round-the-clock support use the prefectural centre above.
  • Japan Visitor Hotline (Japan National Tourism Organization): 050-3816-2787, or +81-50-3816-2787 from overseas. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in English, Chinese and Korean.
  • Safety tips (free disaster-alert app supervised by the Japan Tourism Agency): push notifications for earthquake early warnings, tsunami warnings and weather warnings in 15 languages including English, Korean, traditional and simplified Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, plus an evacuation flowchart.
  • NHK WORLD-JAPAN: its “Japan LIFE & BOSAI” portal carries daily-life and disaster-preparedness information in 19 languages plus Easy Japanese, and the official app delivers emergency push alerts.

If you are planning a trip: what to weigh

Whether to go or not is not something a general rule can settle, but the material for the decision can be organised. As of July 29, the water outages, power outages, road closures and shelter openings are concentrated in a set of municipalities in Kumamoto Prefecture — Yatsushiro, Uki, Uto, Hikawa, Mashiki and Kashima among them. Kyushu as a whole, let alone Japan as a whole, is not in that condition. The Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen is running normally, and much of the network in Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Oita and Kagoshima is operating.

At the same time, non-essential travel into the affected areas can get in the way of relief work. Around closed sections, emergency vehicles take priority and detouring private cars add to congestion. Accommodation and restaurants may not be able to operate without water or power, and 9,872 people were in shelters as of 07:30 on July 29 (Kumamoto Prefecture). The same applies to volunteering: wait until local authorities have set up a reception system.

If you already have bookings, this order is workable. Contact your accommodation directly and ask about water, power and whether they are operating — municipal outage information is reported by municipality and will not tell you the situation at a specific property. Next, check transport on each operator’s official page. Then ask whether the trip still works if air conditioning may not run and taps may not flow, in temperatures forecast to stay at or above 35°C into early August.

Finally, the messages that municipalities, tourism associations and transport operators put out — “please come,” or “please hold off for now” — change over time. As recovery progresses, the message often shifts to visiting being a form of support. Rather than locking in a decision on today’s information, follow the official channels and decide as you go. And if you are in Kumamoto right now, put your own safety and your family’s first.

Sources & References